MATT FINUCANE- Glow in the dark

What glows in the dark? Glo-worms. There is no denying that, though quite pointless, they remain beautiful in their own right. There's something amazingly tragic about the way that they wave their bums in the air, potentially never to be mated with if they don't glow brightly enough. And what about those angler fish with the weird little light dangling in front of their eyes, looming out of the darkness several thousand miles beneath the ocean. Again, pretty impressive in a weird and intriguing way. Where am I going with this? Well, sadly, Matt Finucane hasn't been as favoured by evolution. Arguably, you could say that neither of these creatures have the best deal from Mother Nature but, and sorry to be the one to say it, both are considerably more spectacular than this self-proclaimed art-rocker from Brighton.

Pronounced 'Finn-yoo-cain', 'Glow in the dark' is Matt's second LP in a career that has earned him comparisons to the Small Faces and Lou Reed when who he really sounds like is David Bowie. Or even a lazier Velvet Underground. Or Syd Barrett. Now, I like all of the above as much as the next person (actually, I loathe Syd Barrett on the whole for his own rather droll sound) but, whatever the songwriting ability of Mr Finucane, it is severely detracted from here because there is a mild irritation that he is trying too hard to be someone else and so something he is not. While Finucane does encompass a certain likable Britishness at times, it is still done in such a way that generally lacks a certain flair. Undeniably, the tunes are decent enough, yet single 'Hard science''s fuzzy guitars are just not quite the right volume to drown the vocal out long enough to make it enjoyable. There, I've said it. From 'Into it', a simple slacker acoustic song, to the Kinks-inspired 'Larkin'' and the more upbeat 'Nemesis #20', all are just the wrong side of cool nonchalance to sound uninterested. Which makes me uninterested. Or perhaps I'm not clever enough to appreciate this? Oh, who cares? Yawn.

http://mattfinucane.net/

Anna C