On the front cover of his CD Irishman Don Mescall looks like Gordon Ramsay while on the back cover he looks like Joe Pasquale. Luckily I know its Don and not these other celebrities as he is carrying his guitar in both pictures. Judging by the pictures peppered inside the CD booklet Don takes his guitar everywhere he goes. I think we are supposed to view Don with the romantic notion of him being some kind of wandering minstrel, ever ready to play his songs to whoever will listen.
This is unsurprising really as from reading his biography it would seem that Don ends up writing songs with everyone he meets on his travels. Indeed his press release is at pains to point out that Don's collaborators for his debut have enjoyed co-writing such hit records as 'What's Love Got To Do With It?' (Graham Lyle), 'Mandy' (Scott English) and 'Genie In A Bottle' (Pam Sheyne).
Don's music occupies a country-pop-rock territory that is hard to fault in terms of song-writing quality but is difficult to embrace and love given the pristine production and safe and unchallenging arrangements. Positive critics will use words like "impassioned", "forceful" and "raw" to describe Don' voice but in the hands of producer Randy Goodrum (who also co-wrote with Don and has produced - gulp - Boyzone) it sounds run-of-the-mill and indistinct. A particular culprit is the over-wrought ballad of 'Not Coming Back' that sounds like it's destined for a life as a filler track for the next Westlife album
Overall the entire undertaking comes across as The Lighthouse Family goes country with all the blandness and mainstream innocuousness that suggests. The Indian-influenced instrumental break during 'Son To A Father' briefly pricks up my ears while 'Innocent Run' retains a melancholy air reminiscent of The Beatles' 'She's Leaving Home'.
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But these are small compensations for an album that reveals everything in its production and presentation leaving no space for hidden depths, unexpected musical turns or for any sense of discovery on the part of the listener. Everything is signposted in predictable fashion through hackneyed and over-used song structures that eradicate whatever personality Don may have and which his music is surely supposed to reflect. Tellingly it is the bonus live track, the self-composed 'Shadow of A Doubt' that hints at what the fuss is all about where Don sounds as skilful a practitioner of artful middle of the road country-pop as David Gates.
So it is obvious to stupefying effect that Don is being packaged to exist in that part of the commercial music world where albums like this shift by the truckload to sit in collections that include Shania Twain and The Corrs and which are listened to in rapturous joy by people I do not know or ever seem to meet.
Just where do these people live?
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