James Apollo - 'Good Grief'

From the outset there's not much going for James Apollo. Not that he's bad, he's a very talented young man, but his new album 'Good Grief' is going to blight this poor boy's soul with comparisons to the King of the genre Ryan (not Bryan) Adams for at least the rest of his career. Opening track The Alamo is offering up the same harmoniously distorted guitar work and croaky, pained country vocals that Mr Adams long ago staked his name to. But skipping onto Spring Storm - the second track on the young Arkansan's second release - he manages to distance himself with some light Honky-tonk action. Unfortunately, he never veers far enough from course and throughout the album you might turn round thinking you've popped in 'Heartbreaker' or 'Demolition' by mistake. If only James could focus more on his upbeat numbers he might have come closer to striking gold. [Paul Traynor]