Badly Drawn Boy - Born In The U.K.
(2006)

Review by Sean Lynch

It's a tough job being an "Indie Love Child". From the get go, you are hailed a genius and are expected to deliver time after time - and even if you don't - people still just assume you are because your latest album is "breaking boundaries" and "experimental", when in actual fact, it's probably is pretty crap. Such is the case with the latest effort from UK Indie Love child, Badly Drawn Boy. 

He was praised as a prodigy with his debut album "Hour of the Bewilderbeast", and gained a large following for his The Graduate style sound tracking of the Hugh Grant film About A Boy. The follow up album "Have You Fed The Fish?" was met with mix reactions by the BDB die hards. Personally, I loved it. Granted it was much more polished that "Bewilderbeast", but there were some good tunes there. 

Reacting to critism, 2004's "One Plus One Is One" stripped BDB right back, with the bare essentials on display. It was raw, and for the most part it worked - however, it wasn't his best.

For his fifth outing, this time on a new label, it seems BDB (Aka. Damon Gough) has decided to merge his influences. It's not quite as polished as "Boy" and "Fish", however, nowhere near as rough and raw as "One". But does it work? Not really.

As is the case with all BDB albums, there is a certain 'Getting Used' to period involved. For those used to the over produced nature of any Top 40 artist - heck, even Indie artists aren't sounding to bad these days - it's often hard to find the songs hidden in the monotone voice of BDB, but once you find them through the layers of odd instruments - it's well worth it.

There are some corkers found on "Born In The U.K." (a play on the Bruce Springstein album "Born In The U.S.A."), most notably it's title track which - although taking a few listens - soon becomes a classic. There's also the Moby-esque Without A Kiss which takes advantage of BDB love of strings and productions values, while Long The Long Way Round seems to summon the spirit of Burt Bacharach. Walk You Home, Degrees of Separation and the first single Nothing's Gonna Change Your Mind are also worthy of notable mentions.

But there is alot of junk on offer. It doesn't matter how much credibility you have, sometimes "Raw" and "Stripped Back" are just buzz words to cover up a shit song. Welcome to the Overground, while cleverly made to sound like a 70's Hippie musical - just doesn't work, and there are more than enough monotonal word-by-word ballads that all just sound the same (I'm looking at you One Last Dance and Swimming Pool!!!).

One thing BDB has got perfect is packaging. In an era of i-Tunes and Limewire, artists have to work extra hard to get music loving punters to fork out their hard earned. I've always been a sucker for a good cover (in fact, my first ever Tom Waits album was bought for that sole reason), so it comes as no surprise that I whipped out the cash for the limited edition "Born In The U.K." passport book. It's amazingly presented with leather and authentic passport photo. If only the album could live up to the packaging.

It's not terrible, but unlike "About A Boy" or "Have You Fed The Fish?", I can't see this getting many repetitive spins in the CD player. He's capable of a lot better - and sadly, I think this will sit on the shelf with "One Plus One" and the rest of a nations unfulfilled dreams.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5