Ian Bailey - Bailey

The romance of a lilting acoustic singer can often be overlooked, with these days being full on and fast forward there can be many advantages to slowing down.

Romance and its many consequences are explored in this album of thoughtful acoustic and soft-rock songs; a delicate and smartly produced collection of original songs suggesting Ed Harcourt and a less morbid Richard Ashcroft.

Ian has a thoughtful tone to his lyrics, which follow the travellers’ tales tradition of introspective and consideration of watching the world go by. With a mix of orchestrated, guitar-laden, mid-pacers and rockier moments, the album remains somewhat downbeat; there is always something undone, or a heart in need of mending.

“These Are Days…” is a troubled minimalist strummer, peppered with light background effects, with a stark vocal treatment on the demons of loneliness. Similarly, the upbeat version is “Suicide Bullet Train”, an effective blues number with a freedom-of-the-highway feel. “More Than I” denotes a coming-of-age with a mature lyric and, for good measure, “Wounds of Craving” has the most haunting use of a child’s spoken poem.

Ian’s two weapons of choice are his lyrics and his voice, both of which are notably mature and quite charming. His composition tends to prefer the slower pace, which gives haunting melodies such as “Aching and Waiting” a “Bridge Over Troubles Water” feel, and suggests a slowed down Cast in “Better Man”. It is a collection of slow boilers, and the pace does begin to weigh itself down in the closing songs, but the quality of tone and temperament is clear throughout. A very clever and deep album.

For more information, or to order rthe album, visit baileythemusic.net

Written by Liam Pennington as an UndeReview contribution

Photography: baileythemusic.net