The Wild Man of Europe
Album: Old-Fashioned Flames
Label: Emu Bands
Tracks: 8
Website: http://www.thewildmanofeurope.com

The Wild Man of Europe is centred round the songwriting and singing of Alec Bowman, a singular and uncompromising talent formerly of bass merchants Formication, but since having undergone conversion to sparse acoustic-based music of the Ryan Adams/Bonnie Prince Billy/Bright Eyes school. Such inspirations loom large during the course of this eight-tracker, whose description on the press handout as "an English Gram Parsons for the age of austerity; disturbing and disturbed modern English country rock" is not entirely helpful.

The croaked melancholy of Alec's writing recalls Ryan Adams and early Neil Young more than Gram Parsons, and it's certainly not anything like as country. And the combination of Alec's vulnerable, creaky voice with Rosey Haze's harmonies, while persuasive, well Gram 'n' Emmylou it ain't! Which brings me to the main concern here: that listening to the first three or four songs on Old-Fashioned Flames is a rewarding experience that enables reasonable appreciation of Alec's lyrics; but the downside is thereafter that the prevailing tone of disconsolateness allows for little contrast between the individual songs or the template in which they're configured, and to a certain extent it's left to variations in the instrumentation to carry the day - in which respect, mandolin, flute and saw do duty to rescue the songs from a guitar-and-harmonica formula that has become a mite ubiquitous by the time we reach the end of the eight tracks.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty that's appealing in Alec's music and his determined vision, but it's not exactly "wild", actually quite old-fashioned (using this term at best in the sense of authentic) might be a better description. And Alec gets decent support from Jim Broughton (mandolin, harmonica), Roland Parker (cajon, drums) and producer Mark Rolfe (bass), as well as the aforementioned Rosey Haze (saw, flute). To some extent, this jury's still out.

David Kidman