Christopher Holland, Jools' younger brother, describes himself as "a singer songwriter and keyboard player with a beard". This is not a particularly electrifying presentation but at least prepares you for his bland brand of MOR pop.
His fifth album runs to a thumping 26 tracks to fill up the 80 minute limit on a single CD. For some mysterious reason ten of these (including the title track) are listed as 'Demos' although I would challenge anyone to spot the difference between these and the finished articles.
Climatic metaphors abound as in "You take the dark clouds away" on Everything's Clear, the observation that love comes in "all the colours of the rainbow" and likening the impact of a woman to "a summer breeze" (Under Her Smile).
All the songs are laden with a vapid optimism and while he doesn't actually sing 'every day's a sunny day in your heart', this is his overriding message to the world.
Other lowlights are a cover of Beach Boys' Funky Pretty and the Stevie Wonder inspired Funny Feeling with guest vocals from Katy Shotter. On the latter, pseudo soulful lyrics contain the kind of drab 'wisdom' you find in Christmas crackers such as "anything your heart desires will come to you".
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Monkey On You, co-written with Squeeze's Chris Difford, is only interesting insofar that it introduces us to the verb 'to monkey' as in "I'll monkey on you, tell me you'll monkey on me". The obvious sexual connotations here are about as daring as things get since these are songs that make Chris DeBurgh sound raunchy.
Soppiest of all is Mother's Song ("I'm so glad you made me") but it would be wrong to pick out one track from an album where the insipid quality is so relentless you can practically feel the brain cells being extinguished as you listen.
Christopher Holland's website
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