Puzzle Muteson – En Garde

There are positive ways to be musically ground-breaking; by pushing things further than anyone previously dared, for example, or innovating something brand spanking new. There are also negative ways: for instance, redefining the limits of boredom, as Puzzle Muteson threatens to do on his debut. Thirty seconds into opener I Was Once a Horse and the record has exhausted its range: though gorgeously rendered, the remaining forty one minutes barely shift its stresses, with only the title track rustling up a second gear.

It’s the equivalent of Shakespeare jotting down ‘If music be the food of love…’ then forcefully underscoring it hundreds of times with his quill rather than playing on; a shame, since Muteson’s tremulous vocals and gossamer melodies contain the seed of something enchanting. Take a slender slice of En Garde and you might fall in love; consume the whole thing and you’ll more likely fall into a coma.