Prepare To Be Happy

Although he served time as a boy soprano in the Palestrina Choir at Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral and studied classical music at UCD, Brady’s sonic reference point is American AOR circa 1976. That was when West Coast blue-eyed soul fused with rock and jazz to give the world the smooth funk of Pablo Cruise, Michael Franks and the Allessi Brothers, whose guilty pleasure ‘Oh Lori’ is a clear influence here. But if there’s one artist that informs Brady’s approach more than most, it’s Boz Scaggs, whose Silk Degrees album virtually defined the genre. He even includes a version of the Scaggs hit, ‘Lowdown’ from that album here, updating it with a few nods to the electro-textures of Air, Phoenix and Beck.
But it’s the strength of his own material and his smooth-as-velvet voice that lifts Prepare To Be Happy from the retro-fest it might well have been. It kicks off with a killer tune in ‘Second Time’ – a mid-tempo, romantic ballad with a taut rhythm. The opening bars of ‘Waiting For The Sun’ recalls the Isley Brothers’ ‘Harvest For The World’ but soon reveals itself as another memorable gem with an insistent groove and a chorus that deserves to grace the airwaves.
The acoustic-guitar grounded ‘One Cool Child’ will draw comparisons with Jack Johnson, but Brady avoids the reggae-lite of the slacker-surfer in favour of a cooler, funkier rhythm section. ‘Sun Shining Down’ (the sun is a recurring lyrical theme here) showcases his controlled vocals with hints of Massive Attack in the mix. Meanwhile, you can almost feel the waves lashing at your feet when he sings “like the summer breeze floating across the sea” on ‘Angry’. The late-night cocktail jazz of closing number ‘You Look So Good Tonight’ is arguably the highlight of the album and the sort of song Amy Winehouse would win huge plaudits for. But again Brady’s graceful and understated vocal performance makes it all his own. Now where did I put my satin baseball jacket?

Key Track: ‘You Look So Good Tonight’