Mike Bones - A Fool For Everyone

Quite ironically, Mike Bones sings "I listen to his songs/sounds like someone hurt him bad". A Fool For Everyone opens with the track Today the World is Worthy of My Loathing, and continues in much the same way. Each track describes from first-person perspective a man who seems to have been hurt too badly to sing about anything else, and his second long player is a tirade against every injustice exacted upon him. A session musician stepping out from behind the names to make his own way, it is a shame Bones is so keen to play the victim in order get attention. The album is gently ramshackle, guitar-shop solos with lazily arranged brass and swaying fiddles, but the nonchalant instrumentation constantly takes a back seat to Bones' tedious musing. Despite recording for Vice Records, surely a label that you'd imagine would be begging its artists to be contentious, this is merely wearisome. [Jamie Scott]