Scouse folksters latest effort seems awkwardly over-polished

 

AmsterdamArm in ArmCIA Records/Universal

 

Best known for anthemic bit of beauty ‘Does This Train Stop On Merseyside?’, which happens to be the last song ever played on John Peel’s festive fifty (isn’t it weird to hear his name without it being prefixed by “the late, great”?), Ian Prowse’s Amsterdam have been gathering up famous fans aplenty. Even if Christy Moore and Elvis Costello aren’t exactly the coolest celebrity fans a band can have.

Coming from the anthemic folk angle, this band of Scousers, lead by have more in common with the polished Celtic folk The Frames or even Christy Moore than the rugged, urban, anti-folk of Jeffrey Lewis. In fact Moore’s cracked Irish brogue delivers a spoken word poem on stand-out song ‘Nothing’s Goin’ Right.’

But when they’re not going all Celtic, Amsterdam go the other extreme and adopt kitsch merseybeat to mixed effect (‘Lifestyle’). It’s odd to hear a band with such a blatant disregard for music fashion. And frankly it’s kind of refreshing.

 Yet despite some likeable tunes and the odd dark lyric (‘I took a real kicking/I don’t know why’ on ‘Hatred is Wasted’), it all just seems disappointingly middle-England. There just doesn’t seem to be a sizable set of testicles to give Amsterdam’s dreamy 60’s pop kitsch melodies any real edge or invention.

www.amsterdam-music.comDAVE ALLEN3/5

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