The only thing worse than listening to a guy sing about women who’ve dumped him is listening to the likes of Brian Kenealy, who do it well, and with such considerate, thoughtful lyrics and sour-sweetie harmonies too, that you really engage in the misery of the project.
What you have with the former Engine Alley guitarist here is something for you gents who came of age in the 80s, polishing your mint-condition copy of Tilt and the complete Cathal Coughlan back-catalogue. There are few singers who can throw out lines like “ A happy face that I’m missing now And can’t replace” or “Maybe it was real Was it real?” without it coming across as disillusioned middle-class adolescence.
Kenealy is no such adolescent. Nor does he labour under any assumptions about the rhetoric of his songs. With ‘Never Again’, the listener anticipates the morose atmosphere of Paradise Place, and just as you draw the curtains and head beanbag-wards, Kenealy reminds you that “You’re barely alive/ And some complicated jive/ Won’t make it better”... it won’t, Brian, but it’s always nice to have a good soundtrack to the anguish.
Apart from the harmonies, the likes of which Ray Davies devotees will appreciate, the record is well-wrought but still uncomplicated. Kenealy himself admits he’s reluctantly tried to move away from a too-busy sound.
As with his days as Engine Alley songwriter, Kenealy’s command of lyrics is as succinct and incisive as ever, and his past life as a backing vocalist feeds into his very subtle, unobtrusive style of singing which is often reminiscent of Elliot Smith.