The Callstore
Album: Save No One
Label: Talitres
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.talitres.com

The Callstore is the pseudonym under which this enigmatic thirty-something singer-songwriter performs and records; we know very little more about him, other than that he's been based in London for 15 years… but his stylish and distinctively nuanced deep, rich, French-accented vocal delivery sets him apart from the run of the mill.

The darkness of vocal timbre does not, however, betoken a desperate or gloomy milieu or subject-matter. This particular artist is at pains to describe this album as "a way to share an experience" and an exclusive pocket within the world around it. Save No One, recorded and produced in its entirety by this one gent single-handed, is certainly an inclusive a magnum opus comprising a staggering 50-minutes-worth of material: 12 songs, each with a point to make and sufficiently hypnotically delivered with full arrangements involving expert (if at times slightly anonymous) guitar and keyboard work and resolutely DIY but perfectly competent drum programming.

His lyrics are heartfelt, if born out of frustration, and he claims to have enough music in store for a further two or three albums in due course. I must concede however, that Save No One probably contains as much of The Callstore as I'm going to be able to take in for a while. I was probably expecting more in terms of substance and memorability - who can say? - but too much of this "teeming universe" of an offering left me curiously unsatisfied, perhaps due to a certain air of the mechanical and for much of its length a kind of manufactured artificiality that rather sucks its humanity from its heart. Having said that, some individual tracks like The Departed may well make a considerable impact when taken in isolation.

David Kidman