As one-time Dexys member Andy Leek will tell you, being hailed as a future star by George Martin can come back to bite you. In 1988, Martin declared that Leek had three potential number 1’s in his songbook and agreed to produce his debut album. Despite receiving critical acclaim it sank without trace and it’s unlikely most people today will know his name. Enter Kent singer-songwriter Clews, declared by Martin to be “too great a talent to ignore” and signed to his publishing company. Hopefully, George’s prediction proves a little more accurate this time, because Clews certainly has something that makes you take notice.
His second album kicks off with its two most immediate tracks, the wistfully lovely ‘Take One Away’, a song about trying to balance work and home and coming to the realisation (in an anthemic yearning chorus) that you need both to be complete, and the loping ‘Broken People’, another song with a memorable chorus, but also a slightly unsettling lyric.
The folk blood in the songs’ veins flows through most of the material here, the red cells particularly rich on the English pastoral soft sway of ‘Same Old Roots’ and the gently cascading chords and pulsing heart of ‘My Angels Keep Me Safe’ where he conjures thoughts of Boo Hewardine and Martin Stephenson.
He has a strong pop sensibility too, notably evident on the friskily shuffling ‘Bring You Round’ with its brushed snare, fingerpicked acoustic guitar and yet another baited hook of a chorus and the lush horns and strings coated ballad ‘Only Love’. ‘I Still Feel’ also enlists strings and trumpet to embellish its wounded love lyrics, though perhaps its “I said enough, I said it all, I said too much” line may sail a little too close to REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’.
Already championed by Radio 2, the combination of strong melodies, infectious hooks, and an attractive, slightly nasal but warm voice assuredly warrant wide critical and commercial attention. And anyone who can include a love song titled ‘Pixie Poem’ and not leave you wincing fully deserves all the success the world has to offer.
Mike Davies
Artist website: www.danclews.com
Listen to Dan’s new single:
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