Ill Gotten Gains

Nobody could acuse Michael J. Sheehy of being a hopeless romantic. Sheehy’s well of inspiration draws from society’s rancid underbelly, teeming with corrupt prize-fighters, drugdealers, prostitutes, pimps and addicts of all shapes and sizes, as he creates his noir-ish narratives from their cancerous relationships.

These are real, hurt-filled humans here, like the coulda-been-a contender of ‘No One Recognised Him’, the various pain junkies of ‘Some People Love To Get Hurt’, the cheating, lying protagonists of ‘Just A Word’.

Sheehy neither over-dramatises nor romanticises their plight, preferring to give it to us straight, from the submissive, stilletto-loving Mr Smith (‘Some People Love To Get Hurt’), to the pregnant, heroin-addicted prostitute of ‘Wha’cha Gonna Do?’

It is when he sticks to the first-person, however, that Sheehy’s words really gnaw into the marrow. ‘Love Insane’ is an exercise in intensity, Sheehy’s sonorous, sorrowful tones perfectly portraying the raw passion and fervour of an almost fanatical love.

Both ‘Sweet Blue Gene’ (also the title of his debut album) and ‘Tired Old Love Song’ recount the final degradations of a relationship gone sour: the latter assaulting the senses with a barrage of bitterness: “I’ll shed no tear for a love that turned bad/ It’s over and I am glad”.

The music is a mixture of raw, percussion-fuelled rock, thanks to some sublime programming from Dimitri Tikovoi, and slower, more soulful pieces, some featuring Spritualised’s Ray Dickaty on soprano saxophone. Whether, he’s playing it wild at heart or slow and brooding, though, there’s no getting away from the clamming, cloying emotion spilling out from between the notes. File under Seriously Uneasy Listening.