Album: Alan Pownall, True Love Stories (Mercury)

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There are moments on this enjoyable debut album that suggest Alan Pownall shares the same relaxed charm and easy affinity with traditional pop modes as Paolo Nutini.

Several songs sound as if they were written on the ukulele, others play with waltz and tango rhythms, and both "Life Worth Living" and "Chasing Time" have an understated island flavour, as if sheltering beneath a straw brim from the Caribbean sun. Pownall brings a strong melodic sense to his benighted tales of blighted love and ships passed during nights too dark to notice what's been lost, with the bouncy piano of "Clara" recalling Elton John, and the tack piano rendering "Too Many Holes" in proper pub-singalong style. Best of all is the opener "More or Less", a song of resigned disaffection set to noodling organ and tinny drum-machine.

DOWNLOAD THIS More or Less; Clara; Chasing Time; Too Many Holes

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