Badly Drawn Boy

Woe to the hipsters who hoped that Badly Drawn Boy would be their British, knit-capped, still-living version of Elliott Smith. Damon Gough has instead pushed himself straight down Pop Avenue, and with mixed results. Despite some ambitious themes and singular flourishes, too many of the songs on Born In The U.K. qualify as lite-radio milquetoast, and have saddled him with some biting -- if not entirely warranted -- comparisons to James Blunt.

Born In The U.K. gets off to a schmaltzy start, with Gough having the following, piano-backed conversation with himself: "If the world was a better place, some of these bad things wouldn't happen," says Pessimistic Damon. "Yeah, but, there's good things all around -- you just have to look longer and harder to see them sometimes," retorts Optimistic Damon. Your theme for the album, ladies and gentlemen!

Glib opening aside, too many of these songs take too long to find their footing. "Promises" has a patient orchestral build that leads to an effective kick-in with percussion, but its impact is ultimately diluted by a kitchen-sink arrangement (weeping guitars! cinematic strings! sweeping piano!) and some uninspired lyrics. A number of other tracks, like "The Way Things Used to Be" and "Journey from A to B," float by prettily but unremarkably.

Some of the slower songs would be interesting to hear in a solo context; the heavy production generally works better with the more upbeat tracks. The boldest is "Welcome to the Overground," with its hyperactive mini-musical feel and multi-tracked, Sufjan-esque chorus. It's a million miles from -- and a million times better than -- Mr. Blunt.

To be fair, Gough seldom lets a song go past without finding a melodic lilt that burrows into the brain. The beginning of "Walk You Home," for instance, is wonderfully buoyant, but then finds neither an interesting verse nor chorus, so settles for recycling. "Degrees of Separation" suffers from a similar problem, with verses that seem to just be passing the time in between the main hook and the bridge.

The heart of a romantic beats strong on Born In The U.K., and Gough reliably succeeds in exploring the intersection between puppy love and permanent devotion. On "One Last Dance," he vows to be your Troy Donahue if you'll be his Sandra Dee. There's a razor blade in that sugary come-on; Donahue and Dee were teen idols, but off-screen both battled alcoholism, among other demons. Clearly, Gough still has a gift for bouncy pop with a bittersweet aftertaste. Hopefully his next collection will be a less uneven showcase. - Adam McKibbin, The Red Alert

After a bout with writer's block left most of what would have been the fifth Badly Drawn Boy album on the scrap heap, Damon Gough regrouped by writing a set of songs inspired by growing up in the United Kingdom. The results are Born in the U.K., an album that, of course, nods to Bruce Springsteen's rousing-yet-searching Born in the U.S.A. (the Boss is also thanked in the liner notes), but also feels like it's trying to win -- and impress -- as big an audience as possible. At times, Born in the U.K. is impressive, but not necessarily with its most ambitious moments. After the relatively restrained One Plus One Is One, Gough returns to the elaborate, heavily arranged sound of Have You Fed the Fish? for most of the album, and too often, his words and melodies end up drowning in their busy surroundings. "Nothing's Gonna Change Your Mind" is a particularly unfortunate casualty, a song with good bones that's done in by strings that are somehow massive and fussy at the same time. Meanwhile, "Welcome to the Overground," with its huge choir and equally giant guitars and pianos, sounds like it was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber instead of Badly Drawn Boy. To be fair, Gough does harness the album's widescreen sound effectively at times: "Degrees of Separation" is the closest Born in the U.K. comes to clearly elaborating on its concept, setting memories of the Thatcher era to rock that nods to "God Save the Queen," both the national anthem and the punk anthem. "Journey from A to B" is another standout that makes the most of its Springsteen and Phil Spector homages. As the album unfolds, Gough seems to get his footing; it's as though he spends the first half of the album trying to wow his audience but only proves impressive once he gets rid of the pretense. Enough of Born in the U.K.'s second half works well that it makes the album's early missteps even more mystifying: "Walk You Home Tonight"'s hints of blue-eyed soul and Motown nail the sophisticated but accessible sound that Gough strains for in other places, as do "The Way Things Used to Be"'s slight country twang and "Long Way Round (Swimming Pool)"'s Burt Bacharach-style pop. Still, it's more than a little odd that Gough keeps trying this grandiose direction, when the smaller, more idiosyncratic, far more personal sound of The Hour of Bewilderbeast and About a Boy won him fans in the first place. Even though Gough intended Born in the U.K. for a wider audience, it's likely that only the most devoted Badly Drawn Boy fans will enjoy -- or have the patience for -- the attempts at epics here. His voice and songwriting are so engaging that they don't need to be propped up by impressive-seeming arrangements. As with Have You Fed the Fish? and One Plus One Is One, Born in the U.K. is at its best when Gough shares something personal, instead of writing for an audience of "everybody" that doesn't actually exist. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide