The first time I listened to this I didn’t like it. The second time I listened to it I didn’t like it very much either. The third time I listened to it I started to like it. Maybe by the time I finish this review I will love it?
If I was compiling a list of things I do not want to hear, beards and acoustic instruments would be on it. Yes I don’t want to hear your beard! But hell, JOHN SMITH doesn’t need my barbershop tips because he is fresh from a tour supporting Richard Hawley.
There Is A Stone starts off the album. I swear I have heard this on the telly, maybe I will do. It’s quite affecting in a Sunday night kind of way. It’s a love song with a nice cello-tinged refrain. The title track uses great lakes as an analogy for love. It doesn’t really go anywhere, like a boat on a lake. England Rolls Away and I am being reminded of the Australian, Pete Murray. The next song is a potential single it seems to me and again features a female voice in lovely tandem. Town to Town does a great job of holding the album together. It’s a nice ramble from here to there.
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Salty and sweet is a great pop song and I will definitely be looking out for Lisa Hannigan after hearing this. Away We Go is a wistful tune and John’s voice suits it well. It’s a careworn “gather your shoes” affair. “What is love if not the perfect storm?” is the question of the voice and guitar song of the same title and the voice doesn’t hold up quite as well on this one but the playing carries it off well enough.
Forever To The End takes away a little from an otherwise well sequenced album, but Lungs is a suitably poignant climax to this neat enough set of love songs.
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