When not doing his ‘day job’ as a theatre critic (sounds like hard graft) Rob Kendt is flouncing around on his piano, possibly smoking gold-tipped cigarettes in a long cigarette holder, entertaining New York’s elite in his Frazier-style apartment with witty anecdotes about Broadway and the like.
Perhaps it was at one of these hypothetical soirees that celebrated Manhattan entrepreneur, Harvey Assbanger, persuaded Rob to become a singer/songwriter. Whatever the surroundings, it was a bad move.
You see, ‘I’m Not Sentimental’ is possibly one of the worst albums I’ve ever heard. Virtually every track is a cheesy, odious dirge against music – ranging from crooning piano lounge (‘Lullaby’ and others) to a sudden and inexplicable southern accent on the plastic country ditty ‘Pick Me’.
Perhaps the album’s real low point, when it really hits the depths, is on the (and I can barely bring myself to say this) ‘mash up’ of Britney Spears and The Beatles; ‘Oops I did Bunglalow Bill’. The track is an absolute embarrassment and so cringey it’s likely to induce projectile vomiting, single-handedly managing to be about 10 times worse than it even sounds.
One of the worst things about this album is that it is completely devoid of talent. Kendt simply can’t sing a note. He’s tone deaf and off key at times on most of the tracks. His writing stinks of smug self indulgence and tries to be too intelligent and theatrical.
In truth, it sounds like elevator music for the lobotomised.
It is really an astonishingly bad album. It has the authentic atmosphere of those albums made by celebrities in the 1960s- William Shatner et all bellowing Dylan like they understood folk rock as a category of torch balladry.