Album title:
On Your Sleeve
Artist:
Jesse Malin
Label:
One Little Indian
Billed rather defensively as a filler album, with On Your Sleeve Jesse Malin finally masters the art of redundancy; parading a clutch of his favourite tracks, most debased by his contrived whine and karaoke-country slant. From the passable opener of Lookin' for a Love by Neil Young, we're led to Sam Cooke's Wonderful World; through which Malin blubs, sounding as though he's had his lips partially stapled together, to the float-away lightness of Paul Simon's Me and Julio Down by the School Yard. It proves an incredible chore to walk through his world, particularly when the end of that walk is met by Harry Nilsson's Everybody's Talking: barely resurrected, and tumbling straight back into the grave. Malin is better than this, if only slightly, but it's a harsh world, and sadly, On Your Sleeve amounts to nothing more than 46 minutes of wasted time. He'd have been better off making us a mix tape. [Paul Neeson]