Boy Who Trapped the Sun - Watermark EP

by Jon Rogers

published: 25 / 10 / 2009

Label: Country Punk
Format: CDS

Wistful, but unassuming debut EP from the Boy Who Trapped the Sun, the project of Isle of Lewis-born, but now London-based folk artist, Colin MacLeod

Review

The Boy Who Trapped the Sun is also known as Colin MacLeod who is from the Isle of Lewis, but now resides in London and came to the capital bearing a clutch of wistful, folk-ish tunes. The four songs on this EP, which acts as a sort of calling card for his forthcoming album, gives a good enough profile but leaves the feeling that there is better to come. MacLeod’s singing has a hazy, dreamy quality which gently floats along, ideal for an autumnal day when the leaves have fallen. It drifts along nicely with the soft, lilting melodies. Admittedly the opening ‘Leaving’ has a little more energy to it than the others but for the most part it shuffles along in a rather unassuming way. Admittedly it is all very pleasant and nice enough but there isn’t really much here that asserts MacLeod’s identity. Sure there’s nothing here to dislike but neither is there anything here to make you like it either. It’s competent but lacks that spark to set it apart from other similar singer-songwriters ploughing a similar field. The signs though do point in the right direction. Clearly MacLeod has been listening to the very wonderful Nick Drake and while comparisons to that troubled singer may be very premature you can hear the influence in his playing where songs like ‘Fragile Eyes’ have a deceptive complexity to them. ‘Watermark’ is hardly an inspiring debut and lacks a sense of individual personality but, hopefully, things could very well get better.