Album, Single and EP Reviews


 

 

  Ramble by Steve Thompson aka Blabbermouth


Ramble cover art

Artist: Steve Thompson aka Blabbermouth
Title: Ramble
Catalogue Number: No catalogue number
Review Format: CD
Release Year: 2012



Listening to “Ramble”, it is not a stretch to assume that Steve ‘Blabbermouth’ Thompson is a nice guy as, with a charming naivety, he walks his earnestly travelled path in words and music. Recalling “Amsterdam” and “Old Grey London”, he looks at those cities with a childlike innocence and a yearning for the past. Now that would all be very admirable in these raw knuckle days if there were something new in his songs but instead we get something borrowed from the thousand acoustic troubadours that went before him.

Even the presence of Josienne Clarke on “The Farm We’ll Never Have” fails to provide a sonic lift to the proceedings and, if you take away the sentiment, there isn’t actually much else left. “Ramble” is undoubtedly an honest album but it has the mark of an album suffering from the oft found conceit that listening to someone singing to a mirror is a form of entertainment.

I have to admit to being disappointed with this album. On his previous outing, Steve ‘Blabbermouth’ Thompson showed a lot of promise but it looks as if the joys of self-indulgence were just too much for him to resist this time around.


www.stevefolk.com
Reviewer:
Review Date: July 11 2012