review, Devil Has The Best Tuna - August 2007

Glynn Bailey, erstwhile egg-man, MP’s assistant and bed salesman apparently , is a man out of time, a man born 30 years too late. On the cover of his latest album Songs From The Old Illawalla (which sounds like it could be a mystical Indian burial site but is just as likely to refer to the fine Victorian residence in Little Thornton which was demolished in 1996) he looks like a refugee from Crowded House and sounds like David Bowie's voice double covering The Divine Comedy demos.

For years, Glyn, played a supporting role in bands from his UK Lancashire base including The Urbane Gorillas and Harvey's Wall of Sound. He moved centre stage in 2005, with the launch of his debut solo album 'Toys From Balsa' and support slots with Vincent Vincent and the Villains, Hafdis Huld and Whiskycats and Woog Riots .

Glynn's quintessentially English sound will no doubt be deemed unfashionable by the self appointed music fashion police and the new album does sound like it has been discovered by archaologists searching David Bowie's garden for artifacts from the prehistoric Glam Rock era. But if it was revealed that Glynn is a pseudonym that David Bowie has been using to fool a musically jaded populace then this would be his best album since Scary Monsters and Super Creeps (which possibly says as much for Bowie's post SMSC output as it does the quality of Glynn's album).

The album is full of well written, intelligent, and occassionaly odd, odes that could effortlessly soundtrack the BBC series Life On Mars without sounding out of place whilst dealing with subjects that are depressingly modern. Glynn is not afraid to touch on uncomfortable subjects including Torture ('Kafkaesque World'), Paedophilia ('The Clown') and coercion and abuse ('Groomed'). But the album is far from depressing, with some of the darker lyrics accompanied by a cheery tune a trick that Morrissey pulled off frequently in his The Smiths days.

This is an album that's packed to the brim with more intelligence, ideas and imagination than the International Mad Scientists Convention that is occassionally puzzling, usually intriguing and always interesting.

The Devil's Rating: A healthily respectable 7/10 - © 2007 Best Tuna blogspot