Baxter Dury – Happy Soup

01. Isabel
02. Claire
03. Leak At The Disco
04. Afternoon
05. Happy Soup
06. Trellic
07. Picnic On The Edge
08. Hotel In Brixton
09. The Sun
10. Trophies

Although Baxter Dury's half-mumbled cockney narratives are naturally reminiscent of his late father, Ian Dury's Blockheads blended punk, R&B and music hall, whereas his son's third and album is full of terrific, understated, dry, post-modern, electro-tinged pop songs. The zippy melodies recall Blur's Graham Coxon, and the sparseness of the xx or Young Marble Giants. With observational talent in his genes, Dury relates semi-autobiographical tales of doomed holiday romances and unwanted children, set in the deliberately mundane settings of "cheesy discos" and seaside towns filled with "undesirables". He has crafted these songs with wonderful detail – Madelaine Hart's ghostly backing vocals, the way the deadpan organ drones away as lives fall apart, and drily funny lyrics ("I waited for her like an oil spillage"… "that night I let down your tyres"). Picnic On the Edge nods most to Dury Sr in the What a Waste-type vocals, but the deranged solos and psychotic narratives suggest the flowering of an individual talent...www.guardian.co.uk