One Of These Kids

Even before his inclusion on the most recent Witnness Rising tour, Pete Courtney had done a lot of travelling, and happily, it shows: his debut album still smells delightfully of open air and new places, and is full of the wisdom that comes from going everywhere, letting your immediate situation fall away and figuring out what’s important from what’s left. Thus, these are friendly, summery wanderer’s songs: simple, but deceptively so.

Courtney owes less to Dylan, Drake and the usual Dublin-beloved canon than to the 1960s-born bloodline of troubadour-philosophers like Cat Stevens or Gordon Lightfoot - ‘Sensible Shoes’ and ‘Jesus Sweat’ are open, bittersweet and complex, with the optimism of the pure heart tempered, but not spoiled, by the clear vision of experience. And, more than once (as on ‘Chosen,’ or the unfortunately named ‘Fairy Dance,’ which is a million times more complex a creature than it sounds) his impassioned guitars and steady, fiery delivery almost recall Woodstock-era Richie Havens, albeit on a much more innocent and apolitical scale.

A really lovely debut, and no better companion for thoughtful wandering and travelling light.