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Cary Brothers - Who You Are (Bluhammock)
UK release date: 18 August 2008
1.5 stars
Cary Brothers - Who You Are

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track listing

1. Jealousy
2. Ride
3. Who Are You
4. The Glass Parade
5. Honestly
6. The Last One
7. Loneliest Girl In The World
8. If You Were Here
9. Think Awhile
10. All The Rage
11. Precious Lie

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New Coldplay album a bit too edgy for you? James Blunt not quite pianoy enough? Never mind; here comes Cary Brothers to save the day.

Cary Brothers. Whatta guy. First name Cary, second name Brothers (geddit? see? like Collaterly Sisters in The Day Today, but less funny). He's here to save the day for any Heart FM listener who might be thinking about branching out into Radio 2, peddling sugar-sweet ballads so bland even Westlife wouldn't have let them in from the rain on a cold night.

Unbelievably, there are people out there who like this stuff. You might remember Mr Brothers from the soundtrack to Garden State, a film that deserved better (and had it, in the form of Nick Drake, amongst others). But more likely, you've probably forgotten him completely, even though the soundtrack album won a Grammy.

And just in case you were in any doubt that this is about as tedious an example of corporate-o-rama as you get, he's been top of the iTunes Folk Chart as well. Gosh! Keane and Athlete would be shaking in their boots if they didn't have better tunes.

But hey, he's kooky, he's kewl, he hangs with the LA movie crowd, y'know. See, he's the guy who made Dill Scallion, that wacky, wonderful spoof music movie that's described as "the country music Spinal Tap" by... er... everyone who hasn't noticed the existence of A Mighty Wind, one has to assume.

So do any of the tracks on this waste of whatever it is CDs are made of have any redeeming features? Do any of them have biting wit or cuttingly intelligent lyrics lurking darkly beneath their saccharine surface? Is it all a conspiracy to subvert the airwaves with rock so soft it would need to carry a warning not to drive onto its verges?

You might hope so, but no. It's boring soft rock-type ballad after boring soft-rock-type vaguely folky thing, from beginning to end. The type of music in fact, that you keep forgetting you're listening to, so easy is it to be distracted by a fly, or a bit of string you've just noticed on the carpet.

The one and only saving grace of Who You Are is that once ends, you'll forget it completely. Small blessing maybe, but the only one available.


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