Dr Nick – Slave to the Beast
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| Dr Nick - Slave to the Beast |
There’s always something slightly
intriguing these days about musicians who find their way to this humble blog
with very little social media presence. In the way that many bands used to
spend time finding that perfect band name before they’d played a note, nowadays
musicians set up their social media profiles before they’ve played a gig or
released a single track. Nevertheless, here we have one such artist in the
shape of Dr Nick (aka Nick Brown) who I know precious little about but he has
an album so let’s give it a listen shall we?
‘Conspiracy’ opens up with a Top
Gear guitar chug and snappy drums before settling in to a Doors-esque drawl telling
of various conspiracy theories through time before ‘Heart Eyes’ takes over with
a Summer-of-Love vibe and pleasing country-inspired guitars. The country vibe
continues on ‘A Time That’s Good’ while ‘Consolations of Philosophy’ gets the
cowbell working overtime and soon you’re hanging out in Haight Ashbury smoking
something intoxicating. ‘The King of Spain’ breaks out the Spanish guitar and
guiro to labour the point slightly but then ‘Wanting’ goes all Manzarek on our
collective asses with driving organ getting the party started – all that’s
missing is the go-go dancers.
The guitar chug is strong on ‘Another
Unrequited Love Song’, ‘Pound of Flesh’ has a nice chilled flow to it and ‘Passive
Aggressive Me’ could fit easily on a Divine Comedy album without seeming out of
place. The album closes out with the brace of ‘Sausage Roll Song’ (a track
rejected by Peter Kay, surely) and ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ which has an inexplicably
80s New Romantic rhythm section before the deep, moody voice of Dr Nick and
those twangy guitars bring things back on message. There are some really nice
moments on this album and this guy has the kind of voice you could lose
yourself in but I’m not sure it all comes together to form the strongest album.
There’s a solid EP in here somewhere but whatever beast Dr Nick is a slave to
is should maybe give him a break for a while.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/drnickmusic/