Briefly

On the other hand, just because you write about things that, y’know, actually happened is no guarantee the results will be interesting. This Dublin songwriter’s first single since ditching his old nom de guitar Arch Stanton combines (a) (what can only be described as) ‘chiming’ guitars, (b) a very thin, high, James Dean Bradfieldish vocal style minus the life-or-death histrionics that once made JD so arresting, (c) a plodding, Hardest-Working-Band-In-Rock sort of mid-tempo too jaunty to be contemplative and too slow to get either heart or feet thumping and (d) the sort of four-square, utterly anodyne late-‘80s pop-rock songwriting that used to be audible from rehearsal rooms the length and breadth of the land before the real rain of Nirvana came and (so to speak) washed all this scum off the streets (and that, inexplicably, is still widely in use by song-contest postulants the world over).
Not that there’s anything scummy or even so bad about 'Briefly'. In fact, a bit more scum, or something, would do this record a world of good.