Our editor’s pick of the albums reviewed on these pages during the past seven days is the return of Badly Drawn Boy with Banana Skin Shoes – revisit the review and check out the album via Spotify:
“If the key to writing is to stick with what you know then Damon Gough has been doubling down on the advice: on Note To Self, which begins with the sound of a typewriter blending into a shuffling beat, the man otherwise known as Badly Drawn Boy is asking questions of the mirror; ‘Do I love myself/Enough to let somebody love me?/I convinced myself/That nothing good comes for free’.”
“This examination hints at the process the creator of the Mercury prize winning The Hour Of The Bewilderbeast has been through in the eight-year gap since his last release, the soundtrack to Being Flynn, a Hollywood movie never released in the UK. Since then, Gough has faced some very public trials, from separation to alcohol and mental health issues, ultimately resulting in a spell in rehab almost five years ago. Now long term sober, in a new relationship and father to a three-year-old, he needed no-one to tell him that the moment for a professional reset was long overdue.”