There was a time when double albums were the exclusive preserve of ‘70s pseudo-intellectual prog rock bands. Thanks to Devon’s Cosmo Jarvis, this is no longer the case. However, much like all those efforts from dodgy dinosaurs like Yes and ELP, Humasyouhitch/Sonofabitch isn’t nearly as clever as the songwriter thinks it is (a sample line from ‘Maxine’ goes “I’m not a wanker, well I used to be, but I’m not anymore”). The main problem with both records is that they’re totally free of charisma and our Cosmo sounds like he’s trying too hard to be wacky.
Lyrically, there’s lots here that sounds like tweets from a 14-year old borstal boy who has a reading age of six-and-a-half – and while that may have been daring during the middle part of the decade, well, we’ve heard it all before. Musically speaking, Humasyouhitch veers somewhere between Busted (‘Wild Humans’) and shopping-centre muzak (‘She’s Got You’ is a wet dream for fans of pan pipes) and is frankly forgettable, but the second disk Sonofabitch hints at a brighter future. A darker, more measured slab of wax, it’s less gimmicky and all the better for it. With the right producer, Cosmo Jarvis could have had a pretty solid debut album, but there’s far too much filler. Much like the Sodastream and the Sinclair C5, it seems that double albums are better left in the past.