"I wanted to be an Indian vocalist who told his stories through Western pop", says Ameet Kamath, a singer songwriter who was born in Mumbai but is now based in San Francisco.
As an immigrant whose experience of the American dream differs radically from the 'home of the free' propaganda, his feeling of being "a second class citizen with a third world mouth to feed" (Can I Have Some Of It) should have been a tale worth hearing.
'Should' being the operative word.
I have no doubt that this artist is in earnest but doesn't change the fact that the songs here are either embarrassingly simplistic or just too lame to take seriously.
On That's Just The Way It Is, he croons: "Some dreams are made, some dreams are shattered, through it all, only kindness matters", which is surely a dangerously idealistic response to a society suspicious and even hostile to foreigners.
It's not all about politics but the attempts at heartfelt love songs are equally crass. The lyrics are posted on his website, making public such clunkers as "All those emails are getting us nowhere" (Give It Up) or "I'm like a river that aches for the deep blue sea" (Love) that are so naff as to be beyond parody.
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He even goes as far as to dutifully set down all the non-words with farcical results. For Too Late To Die Young we are made privy to these closing lines "It's too hard....yeah....aah hanh haanh woah yeah yeah" while the title song closes with "This is good ... woo hoo hoooo woo hooooooo woo hoo hooo hoo hooooooo woo hoo hooo".
This album was made on a shoestring budget and took just two days to record but that's not why it sucks. No amount of studio time and record company finance could have salvaged this album.
Ammet Kamath's website
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