Send "Badly Drawn Boy " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 "His time is now!" So screamed the headline of the December 16, 2000 edition of the NME. The words appeared atop a photo of a grinning Damon Gough, who wasn't just smiling over the Flavor Flav-style clock strapped to his neck: his universally acclaimed full-length debut, The Hour of Bewilderbeast had snagged the UK Mercury Prize for best album of the year. Upon arrival, Gough was a hyper-prolific songwriter who could pull charmingly ramshackle soft-rock lullabies out of his toque as easily as getting water from a tap, but little did we realize how literal the NME's definition of "now" would prove to be. Rather than rise to the echelons of the songwriters who so clearly inspired him-- John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Drake-- Gough spent the rest of the decade weathering the familiar fate of former next-big-things, watching his critical and commercial stock decline over a series of lukewarmly received releases, and switching labels album to album in an effort to reignite his career.Of course, Badly Drawn Boy is hardly the first artist to peak on his first album, but as Gough's latest release attests, so few are willing to use that lingering sense of disappointment and wasted potential as the conceptual framework for a trilogy of albums. Recorded during a reported surge of inspiration that carried over from last year's Is There Nothing We Could Do?-- a soundtrack companion to the UK telefilm The Fattest Man in Britain-- the hastily conceived and recorded It's What I'm Thinking (to be released over the next year in three parts, Robyn-style) sees Gough reunite with Bewilderbeast co-conspirator Andy Votel and considerably tone down the eager-to-please ostentation that marred 2004's One Plus One Is One and 2006's Born in the U.K. The songs on this first installment, Photographic Snowflakes, are ostensibly about making amends and starting over, but not so much in the context of a stagnant relationship as that of a career at the crossroads: "I'm ready to be in love again," Gough sings optimistically amid the Spectorized sleigh-bell strut of "Too Many Miracles", an address that seems directed less at an old flame than his old fans. At the outset at least, Photographing Snowflakes carries the promise of rekindled romance: opener "In Safe Hands" bears a spare, spectral quality largely unheard in Gough's work since Bewilderbeast, while the album's most captivating track, "The Order of Things", sees Gough lay out all his doubts and insecurities over a tick-tock drum-machine track, while triggered snare rolls, synth textures and radio frequencies gently amplify the feeling of hermetic, fever-dream psychosis. (At one point, he even casts blame for his creative inertia to the "birds in the sky" who "steal my melodies.") But for all its surface similarities to Gough's definitive debut-- "A Pure Accident" even directly references signature song "Magic in the Air"-- Photographing Snowflakes is ultimately more an echo of Bewilderbeast than an answer to its challenge, mostly because Gough used to be a far more playful and expressive vocalist, whereas his unaffected, plain-spoken performances here serve only to magnify the repetitious quality of his songwriting. Whether you feel Photographing Snowflakes is a true return to form will depend on your reception of its six-minute title track centerpiece, on which Gough drowsily monotones his way through 10 increasingly whimsical verses with no chorus in sight; you'll either find its slow-motion, pedal-steeled sway charmingly wistful or tediously self-satisfied. Then again, when your time is no longer now, what's the point of watching the clock?...full text |
| Popmatters |
| A decade ago, Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, released his debut album The Hour of Bewilderbeast. It was a great record that put elements of rock, disco, symphonic pop, and classical guitar alongside simple folk music. Bewilderbeast was incredibly successful from a creative and critical standpoint, even capturing Britain’s coveted Mercury Music Prize for best album of 2000. The success of that album got him a gig writing and recording the entire soundtrack to the film adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel About a Boy, which turned out to be more pop-oriented and boisterous than his debut album. From there, Gough went on to release a series of albums with diminishing returns. 2002’s Have You Fed the Fish? was busy and cluttered, but it had some shining pop songs and great musical moments that made it worthwhile. 2004’s One Plus One Is One went overboard with prog-rock-inspired material, going so far as to employ Jethro Tull-style flute on several tracks. And 2006’s Born in the UK was covered in a bright sheen of pop production but had very few memorable songs. Badly Drawn Boy’s descent from indie-folk icon to overproduced pop warbler was probably one of the 00’s saddest cases of creative implosion. A few years off, then, might have been just what Gough needed to right himself. In the interim between Born in the UK and It’s What I’m Thinking, the only time Badly Drawn Boy has popped onto the radar was to do another soundtrack, this time for the UK-only film The Fattest Man in Britain. On the other hand, the full title of this new album is It’s What I’m Thinking: Part One, Photographing Snowflakes, which doesn’t imply a return to the less pretentious Badly Drawn Boy of old at all. However, the album opens with soft, minor-key acoustic guitars accompanied only by sparse percussion and a simple bassline. “Safe Hands” is moody and atmospheric and recalls Gough’s earlier material quite effectively. The melody isn’t quite up to par, but the song at least gives the listener hope that Gough might finally be backing away from the pop bombast a bit. “The Order of Things” follows next, with soft drum machine beats and more quiet acoustic guitars. A glockenspiel plays in the background as Gough complains, “Birds in the sky steal my melodies / All I know is I don’t know what this means / But sometimes it’s good to rearrange the order of things.” Musically, the simple arrangement does this song few favors, but the melody is strong enough to make it worthwhile. The third track, the single “Too Many Miracles” employs a full string section and sounds much more like latter-day Badly Drawn Boy, but it’s catchy enough to work....full text |
| Bbc |
| It’s bizarre to think, now, that Badly Drawn Boy was once considered rebellious. He was the anti-image folk provocateur who made an hour-long debut of esoteric and adventurous noise in 2000, The Hour of Bewilderbeast. A decade on, usurped by more imaginative strumbling upstarts such as Bright Eyes, Sufjan Stevens and Jamie T, he’s the epitome of new folk conformity: the Richard Curtis of the acoustic guitar and laptop. It’s virtually impossible to think of him without picturing Hugh Grant failing to relate to a pre-teen. This seventh studio album – you mean you failed to notice the last five as well? – will do little to reverse his reputation for the anodyne. Drum machines crunch inoffensively, cheap beats are employed, and if the strings on Too Many Miracles aren’t actually synthesised, great lengths have been taken to ensure they sound like it. Where once Damon Gough seemed to be pushing folk music into colourful new sonic spheres, here he retreats into lo-fi security and recalls little so much as Stephen Duffy’s lush 80s acoustic combo The Lilac Time. His vocal timbre is similarly feather-light and dreamy, his lyrics appropriately vacuous: "I’m tired of dreaming of what tomorrow brings" he croons on What Tomorrow Brings, while in The Order of Things he complains "Birds in the sky steal my melodies". Yeah, and how high is that sky, eh Damon? My oh my… The Lilac Time, however, boasted deeply affecting melodies that unravelled gradually, rewarding repeated listening immeasurably. It’s What I’m Thinking Pt 1 boasts a few such moments. The aforementioned Too Many Miracles is a soulful strut that, with its Motown throwbacks, might be a stab at the Plan B/Winehouse dollar, while A Pure Accident is sublime shoegaze folk that effortlessly surpasses much of Gough’s more recent material. Sadly, much of the rest conforms to a malaise that’s afflicted him since 2002’s Have You Fed the Fish?: repetitive tracks consisting of one looping half-melody that outstays its welcome by several months. The title-track here is a prime example: six and a half minutes that aims for White Album languor and hits the drearier end of Red House Painters....full text |
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