Badly Drawn Boy

Four years after his last album proper, English troubadour Badly Drawn Boy (aka Damon Gough) returns with the most subtle and focused record of his career. After completing music for the film The Fattest Man in Britain, Gough was, apparently, creatively reinvigorated; he began working on what will be a trilogy of albums whose express goal is quick turnaround: write, record and release as fast as possible. Much will be made of the record's lyrical introspection ("I'm a failure at heart," from the title track), but part of the charm of Gough's Mercury Prize-winning debut, The Hour of the Bewilderbeast, was its quirky sonic experimentation. Subsequent efforts like One Plus One is One and the disastrous Have You Fed the Fish? wallowed in over-produced pop bombast, but here the echo-laden vocals often take a backseat to the album's lush instrumental tracks. It doesn't always work ― at times, Gough comes across like window dressing in his songs. But when it does, as on the album's final two tracks, "This Electric" and "This Beautiful Idea," we can again see the artist we put so much faith in ten years ago.