Favourite Sons - Down Beside Your Beauty

Whilst Ian McCulloch's brazen egoism is easily feigned, his soaring vocals are less competently forged. But on Favourite Sons' debut LP Down Beside Your Beauty, Ken Griffin unveils himself as the embryonic embodiment of the swaggering Scouser. The Irishman's tempered tones dominate a record of grimacing alt. blues and straight-laced stargazing anthems. The slithering 'Tall Grass' is shielded from mediocrity by Griffin's acrobatic range, rousing from solemn still verses into a triumphant escalating chorus. 'Rise Up' and 'Walking Here' may fail to shimmer with such sincerity, shuffling like a tramp through a gutter of stolid riffs, but the cultivated beauty of 'Things That We Do To Each Other' elevates itself from these spasmodic irrelevancies, proving an emotionally invoking closer. Not a patch on the prowess of the Bunnymen, Down Beside Your Beauty still suggests that in Ken Griffin we've finally found an heir to Mr McCulloch's pristinely preserved throne. [Billy Hamilton]