Not Fade Away

Major record labels can be harsh and fickle mistresses. When you first get into bed with them, they promise you the big romance – sun, moon and stardom. If your album doesn’t instantly sell by the planeload though, they swiftly fuck you. Or stop fucking you, as the case may be.
Like many a musical artist before him, David Kitt has learned this the hard way. After a lot of (justifiable) hype, he lost his major deal when 2003’s loved-up and soulful Square One failed to repeat its chart-topping Irish success elsewhere. While it certainly had its moments, the covers album which followed, 2004’s The Black & Red Notebook, sounded like the work of someone who’d seriously lost both their inner confidence and artistic bearings. Thankfully, on the defiantly angry Not Fade Away he appears to have found them again.
Most of the album was recorded in Kittser’s own home studio in Dublin, and produced and mixed with the assistance of the ubiquitous Karl Odlum and respected Swedish producer Tore Johansson (whose previous credits include Franz Ferdinand and The Cardigans).
He’s had a little help from his friends as well. Singers Lisa Hannigan and Annie Tierney, members of The Redneck Manifesto and The Magic Numbers, and his younger brother Robbie, have all thrown their respective talents into the mix.
There really isn’t a dud amongst the eleven tracks. The gloriously ambient and uplifting ‘Up To You’ should perhaps have been titled ‘Note To Self’ (“I was waiting for a round of applause/But it’s just one lost cause/After another lost cause”).
He rocks out as he hits rock bottom on ‘Say No More’: “Hit a real bad slump on Friday night/Got whiskey drunk, got into a fight”. The synthesised ‘Don’t Fuck With Me’ undoubtedly speaks for where his head is currently at (and, by all accounts, is already a live favourite). With its repeated refrain of “I’d rather have one chance than to have no chance at all,” the slow-burning, jangly album closer ‘With You’ stays, well, with you long after it’s faded out.
While Not Fade Away has its moments of doubt, despair, angst and desperation, it’s not an angst-ridden record. This is ultimately a wake-up call to himself, and the sweet, sweet sound of an artistic rebirth. Kittser fans will most definitely be satisfied, and those who’ve yet to discover the work of this unique and gifted Irish artist are in for a real treat. Meanwhile, the doubters at his old record label will be kicking themselves.