Idle Dare

DEBUT ALBUMS are a curious undertaking. With the luxury of a lifetime in the making, they can come seething with energy or pallid with overkill. Either way, they have to convey an identity that'll elevate them above the mass of sibling arrivals on an already densely populated market. And there lies the rub.

Anthony Dunne is a neophyte who pens his own material and then handles guitar and vocals as well - a pretender to the Dave Stewart throne of creative self-sufficiency I'd hazard, but a role not easily tackled by even the canniest of musical talents.

The opener 'Sometimes' bespeaks of a keen blues/rock sensibility along the vein already ably mined by Don Baker. So too with 'Red-Head Woman', a cheeky tale of Ministerial Mercs and illicit liaisons that'd stir a few unpalatable scéals along Kildare St, every cocky B.B. King riff and strutting lead guitar line goading the story on to its gossipy conclusion in style.

So the gut feel is for the blues, Tallahassee transplanted to Tallaght and not an immunosuppressant in sight.

But then without warning the tone changes, the gaze shifts towards Don Williams and a somnolent amble through country 'n' western reared on the Braemor Rooms. The title track, 'Idle Dare' boasts some pleasant Spanish guitar but little else, while 'Missing You' limps on to its inevitable conclusion, a tale of rejection long on sentiment but short on originality. And as for the pitiful tale of maternal fixation, 'My Mother Loved Me' ("When I lived with my mother, always had a clean shirt/Money in my pocket and none of this hurt") I hope Anthony Dunne won't mind too much if I say that it sounds like he's in dire need of a particularly unpleasant enema to rid him of his psychic constipation.

Backed by a tight band, with the inimitable Richie Buckley on alto sax expertly colouring and shading all the blue notes, Dunne could've pushed the outside of the envelope a lot further than he does on 'Idle Dare'. Country and blues make a particularly unhappy union and would be best granted a Haitian divorce pronto. After that who knows? They say second marriages are much more fun anyway.

• Siobhán Long