Malcolm Middleton - Waxing Gibbous(2009)

Review by Ben Slattery

Malcolm Middleton Waxing Gibbous Tracks 1. Red Travellin’ Socks 2. Kiss At The Station 3. Carry Me 4. Zero 5. Stop Doing Be Good 6. Don’t Want To Sleep Tonight 7. Shadows 8. Ballad Of Fuck All 9. Box & Knife 10. Made Up Your Mind 11. Subset Of The World 12. Love On The Run 13. My Delirium

Malcolm Middleton - as his name suggests - and his album "Waxing Gibbous" is a soul searching journey through the well traversed land of Mediocrity.

Malcolm Middleton is a Scot, historically fantastic travelers. He is not William Wallace and he sure as hell isn't Charlie’s Dad from So I Married an Axe Murderer (Mike Myers playing his own characters dad… classic!).

He is, well, Malcolm Middleton. Which would be great if he worked in a bank, or maybe was a swimming pool life-guard on the weekend.

But he is not.

He is a guy who puts stuff on a disk for us to listen to. In doing so he says “Hey, I’m going on a trip, you should come with me”.

Well I say “Make me, Malcolm. Regale me with tales of your travels!”

And, in the beginning he does. When I first heard the opener, Red Travelling Socks, I was really excited. Maybe Malcolm Middleton is Scotland’s answer to Darren Hanlon?

“I’ve grown to hate you red travelling socks, I’ve been away for far too long.” Gold! Right? Well yeah. Kind of.

Unfortunately for the red traveling socks, they somehow bounce out of the backpack just as we are checking our luggage...

We arrive at our destination, the rest of the album, without our socks and are destined to be bummed each time we look down at our inferior "knock-off" replacements. They are only two days old and they smell.

Malcolm’s travels are constantly marred not only by the loss of his socks but by his lack of adventure. Carry Me and Zero are a little like eating out of the Lonely Planet guide:

It is safe to say we won’t get diarrhea, but we will probably have to rub elbows with every other backpacker in this city.

There are some more interesting moments. On Shadows Malcolm leaves the guide book at home and just goes for a walk. Sounds like an interesting day. I wish he had done that more.

Unfortunately the next day it’s back to "monument this" and "street market that". Don’t worry, nothing bad is going to happen to Malcolm Middleton on this trip.

In fact, not much will happen at all.

By the time we get to Subset of the World, Malcolm has finally cracked the shits and gone out drinking at the nearest, cheapest bar he can find. He finally meets some locals who see him as a novelty and feed him strong, strange liquor and shout him cigarettes.

Malcolm wakes up the next day with a splitting headache, a cut under his eye and the thought of “Shit! That was fun.”

Unfortunately it is all too late. It is time to go home.

For Malcolm I get the impression this has been a ‘good trip’, as in ‘good enough’ - he returns home with a tan. Unfortunately for the rest of us we have been subjected to his Facebook status updates about the ‘awesome weather’ and a bunch of shitty photos.

Malcolm at a temple. Monkey. Monkey. Another bloody temple!

I hope that when Malcolm builds up enough annual leave for another journey he has a better time. He has been around the traps a bit, old Malcolm Middleton. Maybe he was just over it when it came to "Waxing Gibbous".

There is nothing more frustrating than a jaded backpacker. They are not good for anything. Better off staying at the bank, or the pool, or wherever, and saving up for a Playstation.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5