Well, for starters the title sells you a dummy. Due to the fact he dubbed it 'Garageband', your reviewer had begun thinking respected Belfast-born, Australia-based singer/ sognwriter ANDY WHITE had been going back to his roots and had knocked-out a furious, bitten-off garage rock record along the lines of Elvis Costello's seething masterpiece 'Blood & Chocolate'.
Naturally, the reality is actually rather more prosaic, because the 'Garageband' title actually refers to an Apple computer programme White utilised in the recording of his new album over the course of the past twelve months or so. The results too, are considerably more dense, layered and thoughtful than you'd expect from a 'garage' pop/punk album and - as you'd expect - harbour examples of Andy's wry, observational lyric style.
On another level, mind, 'Garageband"s title is entirely deserved, because in terms of writing the album, White completed the songs in a fervent, creative ten-day burst, with the emphasis on the Jack Kerouac 'first word best word' principle. Also, the core musical group - White (vocals, guitars, bass), keyboard player Radoslav Lorkovic and drummer Liam Bradley - put down the majority of the backing tracks at Peter Gabriel's Real World studios in a further feverish two-day spell. From there, White and a coterie of talented friends such as Simon Polinski (programming) and backing vocalists Monique Brumby and Kerri Simpson added further textures and the finished article is a rich, urgent and often anthemic affair full of big, stand-up-and-be-counted choruses.
Opening tune 'First She Said Stop' gives you some idea of what to expect. Full of funky drums and rolling grooves with guitars floating over the top, ripples of Stones-y piano and big, gospel-ly backing vocals, it's confident and more than capable of holding its' own on the radio. It's by no means the only time the album pulls such a trick, either, as a further clutch of bold, anthemic tunes like 'I Got A Number Off You' and the bouncy, indie-crossover pop of recent single 'Message To You' follow through with brashness to spare and the lovely, life-affirming 'You Walked Back Into My Heart' capable of capturing even the stoniest of spirits.
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Elsewhere, Andy reflects on his Irish homeland with songs from entirely different ends of the spectrum. The enigmatic 'Waiting For Someone' is slower and edgier than the majority of the album with smoky, trip-hop style beats and our hero apparently refelecting on the contradictions inherent in his Belfast upbringing ("I was brought up in the shadow of a benevolent God/ a home where outside others were fighting/ about another kind of God concerned with hatred") while the entirely poppier and reflective 'A Long Time Coming' charts the progress of a Dublin in the grip of development and cleverly refers to both Thin Lizzy's 'The Boys Are Back In Town' and Bowie's 'The Jean Genie'.
As I mentioned before, the album is often densely-textured and maybe nowhere more so than on the Eastern-influenced 'Letter From T (Don't Choose The Wrong Way)' which displays Andy's WOMAD/ World Music leanings, while with both 'Live To Fail (Lift The Veil)' and the witty 'Samuel Beckett' the more familiar White staples of literary references and folky acousticism make an appearance. Perhaps more surprising, meanwhile, is the fuzz-drenched heaviosity of 'No Way Out': the one track where the piledriving rock'n'roll suggested by the album's title decides to unceremoniously boot the door down. Although it retains an inherently hummable tune for all that.
'Garageband', then, doesn't disappoint. It's performed with verve and style, benefits from studio heavyweight John Leckie's prodcution/ mixing nous, will surely appeal to both long-term White acolytes and potential newcomers alike and suggests several directions for its' talented author to pursue in the future. Not a bad return at all.
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