GEORGE BRANDON, already known to us as half of Painted Sky, releases a solo EP of his own songs, Plenty More Songs In The Sea. The best place to start a discussion of the record is with the second track, ‘Rock & Roll Soul’, a wonderful slice of country rock in which George considers the dangers of writing a song about a perfect partner. Most of the set concerns songwriting and the life of a musician – something he knows plenty about – so the opening track, ‘See You In My Next Song’, deliberately contradicts ‘Rock & Roll Soul’.
The pattern is broken by ‘Kings Of The Buffalo’ and that’s a clever move – we’ve all laughed about rock stars writing songs about how tough fame and wealth and life on the road can be. Even more cleverly, George subverts that idea with ‘Punktual’ about how he’s not suited for the musician’s life and would rather stay at home in front of the TV and go to bed early. He “confesses” that he would have liked to have a mohawk but he’s “scared of hairdressers” – I ask you! All this leads to the darkness of ‘Growing Up’ in which he bitterly questions the whole music business.
Plenty More Songs In The Sea is a remarkable set of songs and is highly recommended.