Mark Morriss - Memory Muscle
(Universal)

It seems to be the fashionable thing to do these days if you’re a lead singer of a band - break off to ‘find yourself’ and in the meantime record your own album. Step forward please, Bluetones frontman Mark Morriss with his debut solo effort, Memory Muscle.

Opening track, How Maggie Got Her Bounce Back, with strings arranged by Grammy winning composer David Arnold, is immediately reminiscent of Harry Nilsson’s Coconut, and the album’s first single, I’m Sick comes complete with horns, lending the song a holiday flamenco feel. The inevitable injection of guitar pop appears in the form of the catchy Lemon and Lime which doesn’t waver too far from his Bluetones compositions.

A couple of tracks do fade into the background, though. Lay Low is lyrically weaker than the album’s other songs, and So It Goes, a composition inspired by writer Kurt Vonnegut, is in danger of being too self-indulgently earnest. But there are also beautiful moments here, including the delicate cover of Teenage Fanclub’s Alchoholiday, and the captivating Unwanted Friend, which could easily be a single. The cover of Lee Hazelwood’s My Autumn’s Done Come wraps up the album gracefully.

Of course, the trouble with people famous for being in another band is that inevitable comparisons to that band will be made. Memory Muscle was always going to be a far cry from the catchy tunes synonymous with The Bluetones, but it’s clear that this is something Mark Morriss has been wanting to try for a while, that it’s a project close to his heart. He’s been playing acoustic gigs on and off for a number of years and many of his lyrics touch on the ‘dark nights of the soul.’ Clearly, his debut album has been long time coming and a soul searching process for the singer, something clearly evident in its down-to-earth, honest simplicity.

Ali Rees