www.myspace.com/glennmeling
www.glennmeling.co.uk
Meling is a much-travelled Norwegian singer-songwriter, currently (and perhaps briefly) based in the UK. Sometimes A Bigger Heart is his first album, and is being self-released.
The album starts with "When The First Rain Falls", a solid if somewhat generic affair that one would expect from an acoustically inclined singer-songwriter. "All You Can Do" is better, being more up-tempo and having a commercial guitar-pop-rock sound akin to late Bryan Adams. "Sometimes A Bigger Heart" is a return to slower songs, and is quite heartfelt in its delivery but just does not grab the listener. It does have rather nice touches of trumpet and trombone though.
The next pair of songs "Pan" and "Put Your Mind To It" are both a return to the more rock-oriented sound. The former is reasonably catchy, and the latter is one of the best songs on the album, having choppy guitar melodies, a bouncy bass-line and a strong chorus.
"A Little Bit More Of You" is another down-tempo ballad, which is not really Meling's strongest suit. It is not bad but he should stick to the commercial pop-rock as he is much better at that. On the subject of, "The Thought Of You" is pleasant enough example of mature AOR, and "The Drunk Norwegian" which follows, although having a heavier sound, is the potential "hit".
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"Come Steal My Heart Away" and "Caligula" are adequate guitar-driven pop.
The final track "Spin Around" is the one acoustic song here that really works, mainly because it is a good tune and has a male-female harmony vocal that works very well.
Overall not bad, but Meling is much better when not doing acoustic numbers. The majority of the songs are safe, commercial pop-rock and completely unoffensive. He is no Scott Matthews but Meling does have some talent for a song. The definition of OK.
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