Never Enough Notes e-zine // reviews + interviews + music

Few traits scream “identity crisis” more than using multiple monikers for your art. Stanley Brinks, Herman Dune, Andre Dune, John Andreas. One of these might be his real name, it’s hard to tell. Born in France to Swedish and Moroccan parents, based in Berlin and sometimes New York, he is a (psychologically and physically) dislocated singer-songwriter in the Mark Everett mould, with similar quantities of facial hair.

Having listened to the album three times now, I’m still not sure quite what to think. There’s some good stuff here, but it doesn’t quite hang together. Listening to this record is like biting into an apple pie that looks inviting but tastes disappointing. The cook started with great ingredients – fine flour (solid songwriting), fresh green apples (juicy ideas), some butter (fat basslines), just the right amount of salt (bitterness) and some sugar sprinkled on top (sweet guitar solos). But when the pie came out of the oven, it had crumbled to pieces, burned round the edges and the ingredients had separated in the heat. All the right elements went in to the mix, but it didn’t come out as a cohesive whole.
Brinks is at his best delivering melodic, Neil Young-style lilting country (End of the World, or 39 Winks) or spinning humorous lyrics about Martians around cute Belle & Sebastian riffage (Why The Martians Are Gone). As with most singer-songwriters, he’s at his worst when he sinks into self-indulgence – the out-of-tune vocals on dirge All The Love That Was Left would be fine sung round a campfire with friends on a hazy Summer evening, but just sound unimpressive here.

There are deft touches here and there, with many of the lyrics sounding more like poetry than musical accompaniment. Take Keep Your Head High: “I’ve been good and I’ve been brave / but don’t write that on my grave / It’ll just sound like a lie”. Walking the right side of the boundary between self-deprecation and victimisation, Brinks excels with concise, clever wordplay.

Ultimately this album can’t quite decide what it is; perhaps then it’s the perfect mirror of its creator. Worth a taste, but I’m not quite tempted to go back for seconds.

By Chris Moffatt