Album Review: The Fingertip Saint Sessions Vol. 1 - Brave Captain (Wichita Records)

Right, hands up all of those who remember 'Wake Up Boo' by The Boo Radleys, you know 'Wake Up it's a Beautiful Morning...ner ner ner ner, ner yer eyes', well poor old Brave Captain- Martin Carr does, he was the fellow who wrote the damned thing and is cursed to be remembered for that and that alone. This is real travesty because if you investigate any of the of the six albums The Boo Radleys left behind, after their unnoticed split a year ago, you'll discover some of the coolest and most imaginative guitar tracks of the 1990's.

Now Martin has come back in the guise of Brave Captain to unleash his first post-Boo's solo stuff upon the world in the form of this 6 track mini album with the promise of a full album, that'll be Vol.2 then, come the Winter.

So what's it like then, well it could be The Boo Radleys, but that's hardly a description, as The Boo's were a Chameleon of a band, always changing their musical colour from album to album, or in most cases from one song to the next. However this was their main problem, they had a wealth of fantastic pop songs, 'Wake Up', 'Wishing I was Skinny', 'What's in the Box' etc. etc. but their experimental side was too much for some, even though it was fantastic, and that made sure they never quite broke through into the mainstream.

The same could be said for Brave Captain, as it's half-and-half, glorious acoustic sing-alongs and exciting experimental soundscapes. It's very reminiscent of the recent excellent Badly Drawn Boy album, which is a hot Mercury Music Award Tip and therefore could be a good path to take, but only for critical recognition, it ain't gonna sell by the barrel load.

Particular highlights are the orchestrally lush 'Raining Stones' and the tragically moving 'Third Unattended Bag on the Right' which come somewhere between Carr's meddlings with programming and weird instruments. This makes for an eclectic collection that won't be to everybody's taste, but if your looking for something that's sounds cool and is a bit challenging then it's worth giving it a go.

If you liked this,  you'll love:

'Giant Steps' - The Boo Radleys

'Hour of the Bewilderbeast' - Badly Drawn Boy

'Drawn from Memory' - Embrace

by ChrisM