It's commonplace for artists to have worked up the songs for their debut album over a period of years. After all, if they're still doing it the old-fashioned way through small pubs and the lower levels of the toilet circuit, those elusive A&R men are thin on the ground. And they're getting scarcer still as the industry struggles through the perilous fiscal times being experienced around the world right now.
What has this waffle to do with the debut album from Cambridge-based singer/ songwriter PAUL GOODWIN, you ask? Quite a lot, as it happens. For one thing, the detailed lyric booklet tucked into the sleeve of 'Scars' tells us Paul wrote these songs across a lengthy, eight-year spell from 1999 to 2007 and he recorded them over an equally painstaking period, going down the time-honoured independent route of laying down tracks in friends' houses and making out despite a non-existent record company budget.
But the contents of 'Scars' suggest Goodwin was right to persevere, because this is an emotive debut heralding the coming of an impressive new talent. The record's title is extremely apt, though, for Goodwin's sparse and brittle songs pull few punches where their author's turbulent passage through love's turbulent ocean is concerned. They are primarily acoustic-based affairs, resonating with hurt, disappointment and obsession and are all-too easy to relate to as a result.
The potential critic-dividing aspect of Goodwin's work is his voice. Having only briefly checked through the press release before throwing on the CD and read that the artist was based in Cambridge, this writer hadn't expected the dishevelled, heavily accented Essex vocal supporting the Nick Drake-ish guitar ripple of opening song 'Take It All'. Further inspection revealed that Goodwin was raised in Ilford, so that his stubbly, emotional voice should carry more Billy Bragg and Patrik Fitzgerald than Robyn Hitchcock should have come as no surprise. It's great once you get over the shock, though, and actually adds a real gravitas to the proceedings as the album unfolds.
These are songs of depth and intensity, though, so don't expect quick fixes and instantly hummable indie-pop. A band of sorts (usually featuring drummer Mike Barnes, bassist Jody Botting and subtle strings) sometimes add a little flesh to the weary bones of the songs, but only the roughed-up rockabilly rhythm of forthcoming single '60 Miles with a Slow Puncture' swaggers with any obvious poppiness and even this contains lyrics (“I hope the weight is off you now you are just bags and boxes and the echo in an empty room”) more akin to Bill Callahan than Franz Ferdinand. They can occasionally jar you brilliantly when you least expect it, though, not least via the massive crescendo they suddenly work up as if from nowhere and hurl like a firestorm towards the end of 'Borderline”s animated portrayal of a relationship hanging by a thread.
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There again, at least Goodwin's experiencing an active relationship of sorts here. For most of 'Scars', he's lamenting love gone cold, whether the backdrop is stark and minimal ('Radio Silence', the ashes-raking melancholia of 'Phosphorous Burn') or even deceptively jaunty, like on the accordion and mandolin-flecked lilt of the Richard Thompson-ish 'Losing Out To Bullethead' which ends with perhaps the album's most damning lyric in “You just say “I don't love you” and there's no answer to that.” There are no grey areas there, for sure.
Curiously, for such an intimately personal album, arguably the stand-out track is 'In Sure and Certain Hope': a vivid and moving description of a funeral, where the stirring musical backdrop contrasts beautifully with Goodwin's close-to-cracking vocal and the detached, matter-of-fact reporting of the aftermath (“a shaken hand, a glass to absent friends and I'm on my way”) only adds to the song's impact.
There are occasional moments of respite courtesy of the pointedly-titled 'So Finally a Love Song' and the brief, curtain-closing 'One Off', but most of the time 'Scars' wears its' bruises and battered dignity with pride. It's a sombre, but compelling experience and one its' author was absolutely right to persevere with.
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