Permanent Victim Syndrome is a jaunty collection of Songstore’s demos and uncollected tracks. The drums bounce along, the guitars jangle – sometimes mournfully (‘December’), mostly cheerful – and mildly unsuccessful relationships are mulled over. Unfortunately, the vocals across the album are consistently insipid and tuneless. There might be a fashion for lo-fi laziness, and the disinterested voice might suggest a clinical detachment from the mundane subject matter: nevertheless, it gets pretty irritating over half an hour.
This is a shame, because the muted brass of ‘Ozone Rider Cup’ echoes Belle and Sebastian in its rocking restraint and ‘Little Green Man’ is sweetly reserved folk plucking. And in ‘Shade’ a shuffling dream beat combines with luxuriant strings in a more arresting swirl. However, it is too little, too late. Since these tracks have been collected over a decade, Songstore are under-achieving, barely saying anything original or trenchant and at their best when imitating other bands. By the fifth track, the voice becomes unbearable, and the backing just isn’t loud enough to drown out his maudlin self-pity.
Based on favourite records of the past, unwilling to innovate, Permanent Victim Syndrome is okay, in small doses. It feels unkind to be overly harsh on such a defenceless album, and its short duration and lack of pretension count heavily in its favour.