Album: Sam Duckworth, The Mannequin (Cooking Vinyl)

Andy Gill
Thursday 25 August 2011 19:00 EDT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Sam Duckworth here offers a slim portfolio of underwhelming observations, in which his attempts to infuse the humdrum everyday with poetry tend to founder on the clumsiness of his ambition.

The most successful are those which seek to evoke the simplest and most straight-forward of memories and emotions, such as the love song "Clementine" and "18 to 1", a fond reverie of a teenage biker rebel en route to Southend to impress the girls. But, elsewhere, he stumbles into thorny locutions and territory that's just too dull to be bothering with, such as the simplistic broadside against "The Farmer". Unfortunately, the arrangements of laborious guitar arpeggios don't provide enough undergrowth to hide Duckworth's solecisms. And if you're going to use a word like "recumbent", it's best not to spell it "recumberlant".

DOWNLOAD THIS: Clementine; 18 to 1

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in