ALBUM REVIEWS

Geoff Hartwell HATE TO SEE YOU GO SELF RELEASED Out Now @www.vanguard-online.co.uk Every so often an album comes along that after your first listen; you have to listen to it again immediately. You need to re-affirm for yourself that what you just heard really was that fantastic. Did they really have the audacity to open with that track? How did they get that innovative guitar sound? What were the lyrics all about? You sense straight away that it’s something that you’re going to go back to time and time again. However, this isn’t one of those albums. This is one of those albums that half way through track one you’re wondering whether to shove it in the back of a drawer and forget about it, or put it on the pile of stuff destined for the ignominy of the charity shop run. Poor old Geoff – in some ways you have to admire him. He released this album entirely independently, with absolutely no backing from a record company. To be fair to him it looks fairly professional – tasteful photography, good design, appealing font selection etc. But ultimately the music is just hackneyed bar-room blues rock. The tracks are a mixture of Hartwell’s own compositions and ill-conceived cover versions. The self-penned numbers are mostly clichéd takes on the classic blues themes of women ‘n’ whiskey or combinations of the two. The covers such as Chuck Berry’s ‘Maybelline’ have all the heart and soul of the original systematically extracted out of them, to leave behind an empty husk of radio-friendly tedium. Sorry Geoff, it looks good for an amateur with zero music-biz backing, but it sounds trite, corny and highly unoriginal. Steve Claire www.geoffhartwell.com Email Links & Comments to the editor Check the latest album releases