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Tuesday 17 June 2008

Album Review - Richard Kavanagh - End of Tape

In the way that eloquent artists like Bon Iver transfer the energy of a band break up into a emotive and raw solo project, after The Pistachio’s split, Richard Kavanagh appears to have attempted something similar. After spending two consequential months earlier this year at home recording ten tracks for his new album.

Richard’s vocal tone echos all the endearingly innocent romanticism of Kook’s frontman, Luke Prichard, but his lyrics have a much darker and raw crux. Lines like “I could taste the death in your mouth’ occasionally make it hard to pigeonhole Kavanagh in the way that is necessary to determine his target audience. However, his talent is undisputeable.

An unconventional injection of piano keys on ‘Self Obsession Makes You Razor Pretty’ is reminiscent of the likes of Luke Pickett and is no doubt a product of Richard’s love of Rilo Kiley.

‘Spin’ adds another, more rockier, dimension to End of Tape which at first appears a bit out of place but on further listen to the album appears to find its place.

End of Tape is an impressive home recording from Richard Kavanagh. It creatively manages to convey a trademark sound but also diversely use various musical styles in the same way that The Subways effortlessly merge acoustic tracks to make you fall in love with the heavier ones to make you fall out of it.

1 comment:

Kid Kills Piano! said...

hello laura,
I was just searching around the net and ran into this review...of me! thankyou very much for your kind words. I was wondering if you would mind if I could add it to my myspace page and for future press? obviously would reference you etc. could you let me know please - my email is richeykav@hotmail.com. thanks, richard x