Saturday, 26 January 2019

Speedy Keen - Previous Convictions


Rating: 2/5

Review:
Pretty forgettable

I thought that an album by the man who wrote and performed in Something In the Air by Thunderclap Newman would be pretty good. Sadly, I was wrong.

Plainly, Speedy Keen is a good musician and Previous Convictions starts quite well with Old Fashioned Girl, but it goes downhill quite rapidly after that. Keen’s original compositions are trite, almost nursery-rhyme standard tunes with uninspiring arrangements and his pleasant but inexpressive singing voice does nothing to help. The cover of Somethin’ Else is bland and has none of the drive and charm of the original, and Positively 4th Street is simply frightful. A couple of instrumentals which feel like filler complete the mix and it adds up to a pretty weak, forgettable album, I’m afraid.

I’m sorry to be so critical, but this really does seem like another example of a very good session musician/sideman demonstrating that he should stick to the day job. I can’t recommend it.

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