Album Review: Love Sick Dick, Barry Adamson

In days of yore (remember them?) an EP was judged as signifying either a paucity of ideas or of being a generous gift to the fan – depending on which direction the liquid in your metaphorical glass was headed. Barry Adamson’s glass is alternately brimming over, then empty. As a figurative barman tops up, he downs. He’s love-sick you see and is ready to spill the beans. Set ’em up Joe!
Love Sick Dick takes us on a journey through the mangled valves and arteries of a broken heart. Are you ready? Step this way.
Track one clatters into life in a barrage of cymbals and pounding piano. Our hero has been blindsided and makes for the exit. It’s cool he kids himself, ‘I Got Clothes’. Next up, a Hendrixy shuffle as the hapless palooka contemplates his lot in ‘Sweet Misery’ – while existential vultures circle overhead. His reverie is interrupted by the strains of a song on the radio, ‘People Like Us’. Pausing briefly ‘On Golden Square’ the gumshoe reflects – in a puddle of his own tears – on the inevitability of love’s passing.
Watch out for the future-faking narcissists though, as ‘They Walk Among Us’. And “here comes the discard”, we’re warned.
Bitter much? Damn right! The mug’s been led barefoot up a primrose path only to step in a steaming pile. ‘One Hot Mess’, to be sure. All this delivered in a characteristically Adamsonian mash of styles and influences that I’m going to call blues-noir. Feel free to use the term.
8/10
Out now.