Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour Of Bewilderbeast

A long time coming, this debut album from Badly Drawn Boy. Once Around The Block was released to a pleased assemblage of critics last year and is merely the icing on the cake of a quite delicious album which also includes the single Another Pearl. The press release would have us believe that “this is an album that is destined to encapsulate the summer of 2000” and who are we to argue.

There’s something for those jaded Belle and Sebastian fans out there with BDB’s lovely acoustic guitar, sampled bird song, trumpet, cello and myriad other instruments, while jazz fans will be enticed by Disillusion and Bewilder in particular.

Some of the tracks are very short and highly stylised while others are pure pop perfection, that phrase so rarely used to describe a resolutely indie album that has been honed over a period of twelve months.

This album deserves to do well for many more reasons than the act’s name, excellent though it is. It is light, breezy and atmospheric, a surprise is set loose with every track and even the title is marvellous.

“I don’t mind if it takes 20 years for people to realise how good an album this is; I didn’t write it to fit in with what’s going on, or is accepted right now,” says BDB, aka Damon Gough. “I just wanted it to be considered as a classic piece of work.” Confident words, but not one of them is misplaced.