Album: Jon Boden, Songs from the Floodplain (Navigator)

A second solo album by the Bellowhead guy. And he's having post-apocalyptic visions: black crows, water-tossed sweet-wrappers, fallen walls and all. An album-length vision, with occasional rock underpinnings. Very dramatic. Trouble is, for all its firmness, the vision is undermined by the dullness of the songwriting and by the fact that Boden plays all the instruments. For all its technical accomplishment, there is a slightly sterile, tweezered-together feel to the music, despite its grungy textures.

Pick of the Album: 'Under Their Breath': one of the better bits of writing

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