The devil, it is said, has all the best tunes. As an atheist I don’t count myself qualified to support or refute such a claim, but one thing I do know: ALEX McEWAN sure as hell doesn’t have any of them.
Those of us unlucky enough to be familiar with the Dave Matthews Band (for the uninitiated, they are a group so middle-of-the-road that they might feasibly shit cat’s eyes) will know what to expect from these guys. It’s standard acoustic-rock polystyrene straight from the book, with distinguishing features shoved to one side in order to make room for more clichés. McEwan himself might well be singing about some incredibly profound and rousing subjects, but his risible faux-American accent and whining inflection really start to grate after two or three seconds.
Instrumentally, McEwan and his band were competent enough; but even this small mercy was soon forgotten when I became preoccupied with figuring out which episode of ‘Trisha’ the keyboardist had appeared on last week. I think it was ‘My Hair Belongs In A Time-Warp’, but I’m not sure. Whichever episode it was, there was something distinctly alcoholic/absentee father about him.
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There were plus points, however. McEwan had a cool hat on, and the bassist –even though he only looked about seven years old – resembled one of the Tracy brothers from ‘Thunderbirds’. Another positive was that, eventually, they stopped playing. Three positives mean three out of ten. And that’s being generous.
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