The Good Old Days

Kooky is a young male crooner with a classical voice who sings maverick, cabaret style pop tunes like a contemporary Irish Frank Sinatra. His album’s title – The Good Old Days – acknowledges the throwback nature of his vocal style, which sounds like it’s from the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s rather the turn of the 21st century.

Musically The Good Old Days looks to lounge, jazz, and easy listening. As well as Kooky on vocals, harmony and backing vocals, there’s a host of musicians playing all sorts of brass, strings, percussion and piano. The music is good: mellow, soft and interesting for the most part, often smoochy, while a couple of up-tempo tracks – like ‘The Bodega Girls’, with its Latino dance buzz – break the pace nicely.

If you think the music and singing sounds unusual, check out the lyrics for something really bizarre. Kooky sounds like he should be on Broadway, but he’s singing about his Cork city childhood, getting pissed on snakebites and smoking ‘funny cigarettes’ for the first time – trying to score with girls, and other pubescent pastimes.

Some tracks border on the mediocre, but others – like ‘Inisfallen’, the beautiful ‘I’m Taking Her Away From You’ and ‘Five Go Off To London’ – a spoken story over smooth quiet jazz, reminiscent of The Velvet Underground’s ‘The Gift’, which was spoken by John Cale – show serious talent, and a promising willingness to experiment.