Eugene McGuinness - The Early Learnings of Eugene McGuinness

  by Russell Ferguson

published: 24 / 8 / 2007

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Review

The problem you will always have when you sing alone with an acoustic guitar, with or without a backing track, is that you are inevitably going to be accused of being a folk singer. Eugene McGuinness is trying to go beyond that and take things to a different level. He uses a wealth of instruments on this album, which helps to pull away his music from the mainstream of folk. He, however, never loses the sound of the acoustic guitar through out. It is a delicate balance, which is never easy to obtain. Eugene has a good attempt at staying away from such clichéd tricks such as voice changes, making train noises (a choo, a choo, a choo) or doing silly yodelling. Instead he uses a lot of clever lyrics, which are better than most which I have heard. 'Monsters Under The Bed' is an upbeat song with a sense of humour. "My will to move or even to use my brain has been weathered by the eternal English rain" he sings. His use of keyboards on it give a very 60’s feel to the whole song. By contrast 'Vampire Casino' is very downbeat and has a demo-like feel to it. 'Bold Street' is a very simple, almost child-like tune which takes some of its lines from the nursery rhyme, 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' which just adds to its overall charm. A brave attempt at sounding different and to a degree Eugene succeeds, but somehow it fails to grab your attention to any great way. I suggest that he listens to Mundy to hear how it should be done.

Track Listing:-

1 High Score
2 Monsters Under The Bed
3 Vampire Casino
4 Bold Street
5 A Child Lost In Tesco
6 Vela
7 Madeleine
8 A Girl Whom My Eyes Shine For But My Shoes Run From

Label Links:-

http://www.doublesixrecords.com/
https://twitter.com/doublesixrecs
https://www.facebook.com/Double-Six-19
https://www.youtube.com/user/doublesix
https://plus.google.com/10407435529903