Album Reviews |

Paul Heaton



The Cross Eyed Rambler 9 ( 2008 )
The Cross Eyed Rambler / I Do / Mermaids And Slaves / The Pub / A Good Old Fashioned Town / The Ring From Your Hand / The Balcony / Deckchair Collapsed / Little Red Rooster / God Bless Texas / The Kids These Days / Everything Is Everything

From Wikipedia. Paul Heaton was born in Bromborough, England, the third son of Horace Heaton and Doris James Heaton. His father was a football player and came quite close to having a professional career with Liverpool, Everton and Tranmere Rovers. What, no Hull? I'm a Plymouth fan and follow Hull as an example of what Plymouth might do if we ever did get promoted to the Premiership. Also, Peter Halmosi, our former star winger, is now a Hull player. I also spent quite a lot of time in Liverpool and Wigan, so the Hull thing came up. Rugby, local rivalry. I enjoy that part of the country, although it's very, very different from where I grew up in Devon. I'm now in Coventry, a kind of no-mans land, but nevermind. Now, we all know The Housemartins gave birth, quite unfortunately, to Fatboy Slim. They also gave birth to Paul Heaton, one of this countries best songwriters. Unfortunately, Beautiful South and the songs Paul wrote with Dave Rotheray ( where's his solo career? ) got the sales Housemartins should have got, number one singles included. I know, I know. 'Caravan Of Love', etc, etc.

Paul has battled Atheism and Alcoholism. Hey cool, me too! Which sane intelligent person hasn't? Paul is also well known for being a socialist. Hey, me too! Ah, I should explain this is the first ever album Paul has been involved in i've ever even had an inclination to review, although I did like The Housemartins. My elder brother has loved pretty much everything Paul has done, so i've also heard everything Paul has ever done. 'The Cross Eyed Rambler' is the best thing he's ever done. Now, i'm supposed to ensure my 'indie-cool' or my status as reviewing 'classic rock' for the purposes of pleasing a good proportion of my readership is maintained. Paul Heaton? Bollocks to everyone, this is a fantastic album and possibly the album i've played the most during 2008. It's not groundbreaking, then again, recent TV On The Radio albums are groundbreaking, but also the kind of albums you imagine former Krypton Factor host Gordon Burns might of made.

Paul's solo band play guitar music. This isn't Beautiful South, more of a return, almost, to the brand of intelligent music The Housemartins used to make. His voice sounds exactly the same as it always has done and his lyrics are possibly the best, judging by this album alone, anybody in England has written in 2008. So, we get a Beautiful South styled pop number with 'Little Red Rooster', albeit played with guitars, bass, drums. We get the quite brilliant, multi-part 'The Kids These Days', officially my favourite song this year. Oh yeah, i'm coming out with it in public now. Why not? Well, Paul Heaton is hardly considered cool, yet i'm done with all that kind of crap. This is an excellent tune, as good as any he's ever written. All in all, 'The Cross Eyed Rambler' is a nice forty seven minutes of a quality very few other artists can match. I'm giving it a '9'.

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