As part of his studies towards an MSc in International Marketing Management, singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Gordon Duthie wrote his thesis on music distribution. He has put some of his theories into practice by making his own video advert to promote this album.
In this he comes across as a serious and conventional young man whose mission includes showing the world how idyllic his home region of Aberdeenshire is.
The video for Hide could have been sponsored by the tourist information office as it shows him strumming his guitar against a variety of picturesque backdrops.
The ten songs of his DIY debut cover topics ranging from globalisation, digital culture to the state of Scottish football. The only outside help comes from Kristen Johnson who shares vocals on 'Sadness Brings Us Together.'
Duthie admits that he "gets a bit political with damning observations of British culture". The problem is that this 'political' content too often sounds like it was partly inspired by Daily Mail editorials.
On Hide he haughtily refers to the "undeveloped minds" of young people while on Paying A Broken Record (shouldn't that be 'playing'?) he chastises those who took part in the recent UK riots for "Abusing the system, fighting with religion in a broken land".
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I'm at the loss to understand why he refers to religion here unless he thinks that youthful discontent and low education standards can be resolved by a good pray.
The perspective of a grumpy 25-year-old going on 50 is made explicit in Quarter-Life Crisis where he complains of being surrounded by a "boring crowd" and declares that "loud places are the death of me".
In the same song he states that "drugs and university have made me go wild" but rather than going off the rails he seems intent on keeping to a depressingly straight and narrow path.
On tracks like Routine Cycle ("Hills, rivers, valleys will never keep me free") and A Change Of Direction there's a bit more healthy rebellion and a hint of an identity crisis, albeit sung in a flat, emotionally disengaged voice, but overall this is an earnest but uninspiring album.
Gordon Duthie's website
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