It took a fair few listens for me to come up with a solid opinion on London Dreamtime and my “solid” opinion isn’t really solid at all.
Let’s start with the low so we can end on a high. I read, somewhere, a comparison made between Nigel of Bermondsey and Mika and it’s something that I haven’t been able to shake. Apologies for passing on this sound-a-like, but c’mon – it’s pretty obvious.
However, there is one (not so) subtle difference – the Bermondsey boy is singing some pretty dark lyrics. Take the track ‘Killing Thing’, for example – the title alone is a bit of a warning. Nigel’s Mika-esque vocals are backed up by light-hearted music that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Sega Megadrive game. But add lyrics like “the pain in my head makes me feel like I’m dying” and “there’s blood on your hands / And blood on your shirt / You’re leaving a trail of death” and it brings it right back down to earth. Even so, I can still envision a fluorescent music video with a dance routine and pop stars bouncing off the walls. As I type I’m thinking this is pretty great (mainly for the quirky value – happy happy, death death) but I can guarantee that by the time I’ve finished writing this review my opinion will have troughed and peaked many times.
Anyway, I think I may have focused on the Mika comparison a bit much. It doesn’t ruin the album by any means – it’s only on a couple of the tracks. A track that stand out as particularly strong and non Mika-y is ‘This Is How It Feels’ – a beautiful acoustic version of the Inspiral Carpets heartbreaker about loneliness. Then there’s the vaguely trippy ‘Lonely Heart Attack’ and, my favourite, ‘Castle Of Evil’ which opens the album with a distinct rock sound. This all makes for a pretty interesting album – Nigel of Bermondsey spans the genres.