Alan McClure

Everything Is Fine (Until It's Not) (LOST WASP RECORDS, 2014, CD)

Alan McClure is a man to watch. A 36 year-old from south-west Scotland, he first crossed my radar as lead singer and chief songwriter to quirky combo The Razorbills. Now he arrives with a solo album, confirming his status as a profoundly interesting writer.

Here he’s backed by The Mountain Sound Session. According to the press release, they “comprise some of Hull’s finest musicians”, and I’m inclined to believe it. Most of the songs sit on a bed of sensitive two-guitar arrangements, McClure’s own fingerpicking blending with Dave Gawthorpe’s classical guitar. The arrangements never overwhelm the voice.

As ever, McClure’s lyrics take you to unexpected places. ‘Ugandan Sun’ remoulds a folk motif about forbidden love, complete with recurring refrain line, to skewer the state-sponsored homophobia of a certain African nation. The title track is full of his trademark verbal dexterity: statements are advanced, qualified, withdrawn, forcing you to attend to what the man’s saying. But he does easy tunefulness as well. ‘The Notion’ has a relaxed Laurel Canyon vibe, harking back like much of his music to the 1960s, while ‘Rant’ ironically updates Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’ to the context of Glasgow dockyards and the ‘empty Highland’.

First published in R2 (Rock’n’Reel). 

Peter Gabriel

Growing Up Live/Still Growing Up Live & Unwrapped (3 DVDs)
(EAGLE ROCK) www.petergabriel.com

The voice has aged, raspier in its lower register than in his Genesis days. But as the (mostly young) audiences chant “PETER! PETER!” we’re reminded that only a couple of letters separate the showman from the shaman. “My friends would think I was a nut / Turning water into wine,” he sings in ‘Solsbury Hill’, as he rides round the stage on a folding bike.  Peter Gabriel may not be a miracle-worker but he is still a hugely charismatic presence.

These DVDs (predominantly reissued material) record the tours following the release of his album Up. The most spectacular is a 2003 Milan gig, where the band perform on a revolving stage in mid-arena. Aided by designer Robert Lepage, Gabriel’s love of spectacle is undiminished. He hangs upside down from an elevated set in ‘Downside Up’, perambulates the stage in a zorb ball for ‘Growing Up’ as if suspended in amniotic fluid. Close-ups of Gabriel’s penetrating eyes are intercut with shots of orange-clad techies toiling like Nibelungs beneath the stage.

The 2004 gigs find Gabriel introducing the songs in French. The theatricals are toned down, the setlist different. As the previous year, daughter Melanie joins on backing vocals and there is a touching moment as father and daughter hold hands in ‘Come Talk To Me’. But the finest cut here is on the DVD ‘extras’: a joyous duet on ‘In Your Eyes’ with Mauritanian Daby Touré.

The band is tight, with long-serving guitarist David Rhodes a stand-out, and sound quality excellent.

First published in R2 (Rock’n’Reel)