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NBHAP Rating: 2,5/5
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[one_half last=”yes”]FRASER A. GORMAN
Slow Gum
Release-Date: 29.06.2015
Label: Marathon Artist/Anxiety
Tracklist:
01. Big Old World
02. My Old Man
03. Book Of Love
04. Shiny Gun
05. Broken Hands
06. Mystic Mile
07. Never Gonna Hold You (Like I Do)
08. We’re All Alright
09. Dark Eyes
10. Blossom & Snow
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A strange time for folk
It’s a strange time to be in love with Elvis sings FRASER A. GORMAN in Big Old World. It must be an even stranger time to make folk music. Everything that includes a harmonica – whether it is MUMFORD AND SONS or JAKE BUGG – gets branded as ‘folk’ nowadays. All this hype about folk and country music hasn’t stopped GORMAN from recording his debut album Slow gum. GORMAN grew up in Torquay, an Australian dump near Melbourne. His love for singing developed at the age of 12, although GORMAN’s singing lessons were meant to get rid of his (still existing) stutter.
Nice but unspectacular
In the ten tracks of his album GORMAN introduces us into his world. He sings about the sad life of a boy from North Melbourne or a girl from New York City. Songs like Book of Love‚ Shiny gun or My Old Man are nice but unspectacular tunes which are very similar to those American tracks that we all have heard before. Folk-typical instruments like fiddles or harmonicas are often violated as pause fillers.
Unwitting sarcasm
GORMAN – who’s friend and label boss is COURTNEY BARNETT – should stop clinging on his idols. Speaking to NME he revealed that he ‘looks a fair bit’ like BOB DYLAN. It seems as if GORMAN does his best to strenghten this resemblance. Not only the harmonica intro of the closing track Blossom & Snow sounds like a BOB DYLAN rip-off, even the album cover shows a resemblance with the young BOB DYLAN. From this point of view the line I’ve got no soul- cos country music sounds to me like rock’n’roll from Broken Hands sounds like unwitting sarcasm.
‘Slow gum’ is an album full of fiddles, harmonicas and a squawking voice. It got a resemblance to a music night in your local pub: decent but not life-changing. Therefore, FRASER A. GORMAN might not be the long-awaited folk revolution, but he’ll help to shorten the wait.
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