Album Review
Richard Walters – The Animal
In the post-Blunt musical landscape, it’s hard to meet the arrival of a new male singer-songwriter with much beyond apathy. It’s come to feel like the one-man-and-his-acoustic format bottomed out, artistically at least, with those awful words ‘my life is brilliant …’ So it’s reassuring to check out Richard Walters’ debut effort and find in its intimate songs evidence of a compelling new talent.
From the opening fingerpicked bars of ‘Brittle Bones’ the sparse production is evident, giving a live-in-the-studio vibe that suits Walters’ pained songwriting well. Armed with a delicate high-pitched singing voice and a tendency to hit goosebumpy notes, Walters comes at you with a succession of melancholy numbers that do damage on both lyrical and musical levels. Singer-songwriter albums of this calibre are a very rare thing today, Walters is essential listening.