Some records you want to love. This is Dave Davies, the proto-punk purveyor of razor-sharp power chords with The Kinks; the 60s Beau Brummell who devastated ‘tickets’ with slashed speakers and a Gibson Flying V. And his new album sucks.
Davies still cuts it on guitar but the singing is tough to sit through. While he tunelessly tackles the hot potato that is weekend warriors down the local boozer in King Of Karaoke, elsewhere paranoia takes hold in Semblance Of Sanity, Nosey Neighbours and Mindwash (‘leave me alone…’ he howls in the latter pair of songs).
Only the childhood memories-fuelled Front Room, the bastard lovechild of brother Ray’s Come Dancing and the riff to The Kinks’ You Really Got Me, reveal some of the old fire.
You want to bestow a certain amount of goodwill on your heroes but when even the heavy tunes like Johnny Adams sound this lethargic you wonder why Davies bothered cutting this record. It’s a sad career trajectory; from The Album That Never Was to the one that shouldn’t be./o:p
