Album Review: Ryan Hamilton - "1221"

 

The onset of the pandemic a couple of years ago hit a lot of bands hard but Ryan Hamilton probably took more of a battering off it than most. With his star firmly in the ascendant in the UK and four critically acclaimed albums to his name with his band the Harlequin Ghosts, he suddenly found himself trapped an ocean apart from his bandmates and forced to go back to square one. Ever the resourceful musician, he decided to record a track a month during the year just gone for the 1221 singles club (not the first time Hamilton has tried this - he also did the Traitors Club a couple of years ago) with all the tracks eventually being compiled on the album which is now available to buy.

As you'd expect from something that was essentially thrown together on the fly, the main drawback here is that 1221 is a bit of a disjointed effort and my overbearing feeling throughout is that Ryan might have been better off releasing this as a trio of four-song EP's where it arguably would have scanned a bit better. That's not to say it isn't worth a look - as we've realised from his previous efforts, the guy is a frankly insanely talented songwriter and the excellent likes of Do The Damage's spiky power-pop, the delicate piano balladry of Caught Up In A Moment and Ready To Love Again and the pounding Shots Fired show in abundance. However, on the other hand, his decision to cover the Spin Doctors' How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me)? (a song which hasn’t got any less teeth-grindingly whiny since I first heard it as a teenager), just proves that some musical manure really can't be polished even by someone as talented as Ryan and similarly his take on shoegazing stalwarts Catherine Wheel's Satellite, although it's okay, would probably have been best stuck on a B-side somewhere.

There's more good than bad here though as evidenced on album highlight Permanent Holiday which appears on the surface to be an upbeat pop number about taking a break from all your troubles but on closer examination of the lyrics, the hint is that the "way out" that Hamilton is talking about is actually suicide. A great case of mixing light and shade by a master of the craft and if nothing else you really owe it to yourself to at least download this one.

As I say, it's not that 1221 is a bad album, it just could've been a bit more coherent and overall it feels more like an odds 'n' sods collection rather than an album proper. Albeit a pretty decent quality odds 'n' sods collection, let there be no doubt. Hopefully with the pandemic starting to ease off again soon (please God), Ryan can finally break away from the four walls he's been stuck in for most of the last couple of years and start planning a new album proper which will give him the long overdue break into the big time that he most definitely deserves.

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NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)