Album review: Justin Currie, Lower Reaches (Endless Shipwreck/Ignition)

Justin Currie is one of the more engaging personages in pop – his website is, hands down, the quirkiest and most articulate of any celebrity – which makes his continuing fidelity to fairly routine American musical modes somewhat frustrating.

Particularly when, as in a song like "Falsetto", he's dealing with so prickly a matter as religion. "Jesus, I need love, not stuff about having faith in God," he sings, against a faceless musical backdrop. But it's easy to see why he's admired by legends like Jimmy Webb: "Every Song's the Same" offers a charming series of lessons in emotional empathy; while the conceit underlying the piano ballad "Into a Pearl" seems so clear you can't quite believe nobody else thought of it first.

Download: Falsetto; Into a Pearl; Every Song's the Same