Minimalism seems to be the name of the game here. From the artsy, title devoid cover to the short 'n' to the point titles, from the inclusion of the lyrics to just the first line of each song and the fact that everything is Castle (real name apparently Jason Chapman) himself on mostly just voice and acoustic guitar and recorded at, I would imagine from the resulting sound, very little expense.

It's not that stripped down is a bad thing of course; too many of these tracks sound no more than rough demos. Additionally I have to say that some of this stuff is also downright miserable, although a greater complaint is simply that there are too many tracks not good enough to hold my attention and demand repeat plays. "Never Saw'r It Come'n" though and "Lady Liberty" are a couple of decent enough tunes that caught the ear and certainly show promise, "Methodology" also proves quite clever in the way it borrows from THE CRYSTAL's "Da Do Ron Ron", although all you feel could be developed into something more impressive. But for each uncut nugget there is most definitely a pay off as you have to listen through altogether less impressive material too. "Burnouts/Bluebloods" is a whine-fest about some "f**ked up town" that really won't encourage anyone to improve it, although if I could make out where it was I would certainly make sure I didn't visit, whilst the final track "Hollywood Times" won't exactly leave you with a warm feeling either or a raging desire to spin the disc again being a story of driving through a red light and causing four deaths although the repetitive line "that's what the pills are for" might hint at a way for both the singer and the listener to lessen the pain.

It's not a completely bad album, and at various point through it you can hear influences from the quieter moments of quite a few 60s bands including THE ROLLING STONES, BEACH BOYS and THE KINKS coming through but in the end, each time I listened I ended up glad when the thing was over. The acoustic singer/songwriter category, whether singing positive songs or anthems of protest has a long, glorious history and this album demonstrates just how high the bar is and how good something has to be to register. Too much of this misses.

- Leslie

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/franciscokastle

RELATED ITEMS: No related articles at this time.