Acoustic artists need to be good storytellers. All the focus is on one person – there’s nowhere to hide. Mistakes are magnified when there’s no-one else to take the wrap, meaning whenever something comes across as being bad, it is probably worse than a band being a bit rubbish. This five tracker is pretty much one man and his guitar – save one song when there’s one man, his guitar and some samples. And where have we heard that before Mr Get Cape? But before you start to think the wave of bandwagon jumpers has already arrived, Mr Lee is more your traditional one man acoustic act rather than a Get Cape rip off merchant.
The problem here is that the songs just aren’t that much cop. The lyrics are often basic, the melodies not that catchy and it’s nothing which hasn’t been done millions of times – and much better – before. When Craigy Lee tries to take the Dave House route of describing his home town (of Camberley) on ‘Hometown’, it just sounds really cringe-worthy. Whereas Mr House manages to make Kingston current, Mr Lee makes Camberley crap. I swear The Fight did a song about Dudley and that was bad too. Maybe it’s a cool in-joke, but this just comes over bad. Craigy Lee can sing a bit and he can play a bit, but his songs leave a bit to be desired.
www.myspace.com/craigylee
paul