914. Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast (2000)

Track Listing

1. The Shining
2. Everybody's Stalking
3. Bewilderbeast 1
4. Fall In A River
5. Camping Next To Water
6. Stone On The Water
7. Another Pearl
8. Body Rap
9. Once Around The Block
10. This Song
11. Bewilderbeast 2
12. Magic In The Air
13. Cause A Rockslide
14. Pissing In The Wind
15. Blistered Heart
16. Disillusion
17. Say It Again
18. Epitaph

Review

Another great album on the list, on a little good streak we are going through. Badly Drawn Boy creates a great folk-rock but not only album that is sprawling in a good way. The music is endlessly varied and always of a great standard.

Through 18 songs Damon Gough goes through plenty of styles from folk to disco while not losing a unifying thread. Lyrically the stuff is pretty nifty and musically it is very impressive, not less because he plays the majority of instruments in it.

The whole thing is lovely and quite refreshing, he is tongue in cheek and dry in his humour which pervades the album and also has spread into his videos. Good to see some great music coming out of Manchester again.

Track Highlights

1. Pissing In The Wind
2. Once Around the Block
3. Disillusion
4. The Shinning

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The cover art, produced by Andy Votel, is loosely based on Leonardo Da Vinci's drawing "Vitruvian Man". The original art also featured Woody Allen, however his picture had to be removed due to copyright issues.

Other modifications to the album include the removal of a selection of lyrics from track 12; Magic In the Air. The lyrics were replaced by an instrumental after hip hop artist Taja Sevelle claimed they were too similar to those in her first single.

Pissing In The Wind: