Mr Huw - Dirty North Walians

I have a confession to make. I don’t speak Welsh, nor am I ever likely to. Given that this is true for a pretty significant portion of the UK, it’s a pretty brave move – some would say foolhardy – to release a pop album that’s half in Welsh. Still, a bit of native warbling never stopped us falling in love with the Super Furry Animals, and what’s good enough for Gruff Rhys seems good enough for Mr Huw. Perhaps he’s even playing a joke on us – after all, one track on his previous effort apparently translated as ‘Cum Face’ – one that we’re unlikely to get. Ironic? Maybe. Perhaps he’s just more at home writing in Welsh.

Opener ‘Departure Track’ could be a good example of this. Although it chugs along pleasantly enough, with a decent, rumbling base line, it employs rather simplistic rhymes and lyrics. Sample effort: ‘Got my destination set / Close the door, kill my pet’. Both ‘Y Lleisiau’ and ‘Pawb Di Trio’ employ his native tongue with the same basic acoustic guitar punctured by blasts of synth, and despite not having a clue what he’s on about, they are pleasing in a late-Sunday afternoon kind of way. The same basic indie inhabits ‘Desperate And Bored’ while ‘Mid-Album Crisis’, with its 80’s funk baseline laid over maracas and, believe it or not, cowbell, is a little too close to its title for comfort – irony is one thing, self-denigration entirely another. Even closer ‘Everything We Do’ with its refrain of ‘Hate will get us through / We’ll celebrate when we lose / We fuck up everything we do’ sounds a bit too mired in self-pity, even though the tune is jaunty enough.

Pop music, by its very nature, does not need to be complicated, but if it’s going to be simple it’s better be clever, and you’d better have something to say. ‘Can You Feel My Soul?’ is a case in point. One of the high points, it’s still reminiscent of an Oasis demo, circa 1994, right down to the dual vocal effects and swirling chorus. Which is not in itself that bad, just 16 years too late. Even ‘Creuaduriaid Byw’, which has the potential to be a half decent foot tapper, loses its way somewhat after a minute and resorts to simple repetition.

Having displayed an eye for melody in his earlier work, and being backed by the likes of the uber cool Huw Stephens, who signed him to his Am Label, it’s all the more puzzling why this doesn’t seem to get out of second gear. The tracks written in his native tongue may well be Wales’ answer to Burns but, and this is crucial, while The Furries understood that their sonic adventures had to be catchy and accessible, coherently pulling together the threads of their various influences (or more usually whatever they had been listening to recently), Mr Huw just plods along, strumming away on his acoustic guitar. Even the remix of ‘Can You Feel My Soul?’, included as a bonus track, comes across as a bit LCD Soundsystem, but at least manages to be different and interesting in a way the other tracks are not. Maybe he’s just been a little bored. Maybe, as he claims on ‘Departure Track’, he has a ‘Loose connection in my brain.’ Maybe that’s why he has decided to give the album away as a free download. Whatever the reason, the sparkle seems to have gone, and he needs to relocate his mojo.