This record has been around for a few years and was just recently released by Hanvey in the States, where he’s been holed up, mainly in New England, patiently collecting positive reviews, in which this will number, and not just because the guy sings the way he looks: geeky and gaunt in his Chullo hat, but still adamantly masculine. He’s an Irishman who’s retained a goofily reverent, old-school sense of chivalry, as “My Woman” points to; you want to dope-slap him but have him get the girl by the same measure. This isn’t to say he’s a total dweeb, just someone whose Marshall stack hurts his ears when its volume’s set to 2 (he actually solos ? quite nicely ? for a bit and pans it around the mix as if he were engineering a Procol Harum B-side, which is another reason you can’t hate the guy), eventually emerging song- and sound-wise as a hybrid of Augie Marsh, Jeff Buckley and Nick Cave. This won’t set the world on fire through its very agreeable subtlety, but at this point, what could? A  - Eric W. Saeger