Red Letter Day

Kieran Goss live gigs are jolly affairs, almost to the point of being comedy shows. Goss introduces songs with self-deprecating humour and tells hilarious stories that often have nothing to do with anything much.

But on disc he's a different kettle of drums, an assured performer and composer of invariably dark and sombre songs. In fact, there's a viola solo on 'Tell Me Why' that could send shares in Kleenex rocketing. The predictable subject matter includes longing ('Red Letter Day'), leaving (the fine 'Time In Between'), thinking about leaving ('Don't Want To Leave You', 'Tell Me Why' and 'Reasons To Leave') and despair ('Big Tough World'). Yet somehow Goss manages to invest such hackneyed topics with new meaning. The songs also work because Goss has an unerring ear for matching the right melody to the right mood.

Goss also knows how to avoid overloading a song with clever-dick arrangements and kitchen sink overdubs. In less confident hands, 'I Came Through' could have been swamped with strings but instead gets some deftly simple acoustic guitar here, a wisp of accordion there, some light snare brushwork above, a sprinkling of vocal harmony below.

'Easy Way' lifts the mood slightly with it's jaunty pace, but even then the melody and lyric are characteristically wistful. George Harrison might feel that the melody of the verse of 'Moments in Time' (which ironically also boasts some very Beatlesque harmonies) is close enough to his own 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' to call his legal people. But that apart, this is a real gem.