Reviews

Artist: Boz Hayward
Album: Featuring Ruby And Eric Next Door
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.myspace.com/bozhayward

Well, it isn't pretty, it doubtfully will lift your spirits or make you walk with a swing. It's not sparkly at all and probably won't really make you feel on top of the world. However this doesn't mean that the album in question cannot be enjoyable. The music of Boz Hayward can most certainly be enjoyable - in a minus 10 centigrade, Wintry, two foot of snow kind of a way.

Boz spent six years in punk, jazz-jangly and Goth bands before venturing along his own path, and I must say this doesn't surprise me, as essences from the above mentioned genre's can still be traced occasionally, lurking in the tracks.

The album 'Featuring Ruby And Eric Next Door', which I must say is a great quirky title and track, is a collection of songs that manage to muster up a dark and odd atmosphere. Think Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, but definitely think Tim Burton films aka; 'Sleepy Hollow' and 'Nightmare at Christmas'. This is most certainly unusual music, where the term 'expression of art' does tend to pop into ones head and although a lot of Hayward's singing style is almost spoken word, his vocals are smooth, almost lounge-like, and with a twinge of a late nine-teen-fifties young Cliff Richard.

Overall the music of Boz could be described as City Folk, displaying poetry set against a backdrop of musical melancholic life stories, that give the impression of occurring during the dark cold months of the year; take the track 'Confessions Of An Ice Road Trucker' for example. Really though, there is plenty of Summer-time music out there, so Hayward's style should be welcomed in all it's bleak and frost-bitten glory.

Miss James

---