Johnno Casson
Album: Window Shopping
Label: Folkwit
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.johnnocasson.co.uk/

Whilst he's probably still better known for his Snippet persona, that could all be about to change for Colchester based singer-songwriter, Johnno Casson on the back of his debut album, "Window Shopping"

The first thing that strikes you is how much of himself the artist has put into the album, but, and this is a very important but, he's not done it in that cathartic, life laundry sort of way, this is much more in the nature of the way it is.

As the album progressed I found myself reminded of three other songwriters, not that Johnno is like any of the three, but more that the tracks have an affinity, the songwriters in question, an early Bowie, before he discovered glam, Ray Davies and Ian Dury, quite an impressive array it's fair to say, but the thing that bound them together, was their ability to capture real life and turn it into something interesting, something that captures an essence.

Life is, to use the clichés and mix them, a roller coaster ride of swings and roundabouts. Hopes and expectations can lead to joy and fulfilment or disappointment and despair; it throws curve balls and lady luck hands out fortune good and bad in unequal measures. Johnno Casson captures this through a series of songs that seems to lay out his life well simply because it's an example, an album as conversation.

Even the title, "Window Shopping" to some a look of despair at something you can't have, to others an inspiration for something to obtain and Casson manages to capture both sides of that particular coin.

Through songs like "Forget It" the album hits up against tough choices that have to be made if someone forgot to put a silver spoon in your mouth when you were born, but it lacks a bitterness that some would throw at it, it's far more pragmatic.

That's not to say there's a lack of fight in the album, fight and determination are there. You get the feeling that whilst there are times the writer would have liked things to have been better, breaks gone the right he's proud of what he's done and that pride can definitely extend to "Window Shopping" because at the end of the day, life is like this and there's real poetry on those journeys.

Neil King