Badly Drawn Boy: Have You Fed The Fish?

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * *)

Having already delivered one delightfully oddball and sweetly melancholy album this year with the About A Boy soundtrack, be-hatted, beardy English pop boffin Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy) gets back to the job of a proper follow-up to his acclaimed debut The Hour of Bewilderbeast.

It's a worthy successor to both its predecessors, with more songs memorable for their askew lyrical humour and surreal musings delivered in Gough's understated but quietly melodic vocal style.

It's at its best early up on songs like its big rock momentBorn Again, the jaunty piano-thumper 40 Days, 40 Fights and You Were Right (which is prefaced by ballad I Was Wrong). It's not as convincing in its latter stages on the lo-fi funkpop of The Further I Slide and Using Our Feet. But, as the balance of the 15 songs show, Gough has made yet another good album and if he might seem a bit of a novelty, it sure hasn't worn off yet.


XL Recordings