Avant Gardner
Album: Borin' Stories
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 13
Website: http://www.facebook.com/avantg

Not to be confused with punk also-rans Avant Gardener (what a difference an 'e' can make!), this is the Liverpool singer songwriter's seventh album.

Opening with the memorably titled You Cast a Vinegar Stroke Over My Salad Days, which sounds like a joke taken too far, but is actually a droll approximation of another going-nowhere collision of the soul, the album reveals a soil brother in fertile mood. You Look Your Best When I'm Drunk is a disarmingly raw confessional, tinged with mordant humour and sorrowful guitar figures.

The moods lifts with Cookery Porn's assertion that carrots on daytime telly will always look like willies even when shot in soft focus; while Folkier Than Thou takes a well-aimed swipe at the preciousness that has blighted music circles for generations and Nothin' To Do… But Wheelie chronicles what happens when the telly's too boring and it's not raining.

The imagery gets decidedly dreamy with Just Like Walkin' on the Backs of Camels, recalling earlier Scouse masters of dreamland like Lee Mavers and Messrs Cope and McCulloch, Your Memory's Safe With Me is a warm remembrance woozily recalled and Sorry I Make No Apologies reveals an acid wit and steely heart - a cruel combination.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk