On a desperately mediocre Saturday afternoon at the Charlbury festival earlier this year, Charly Coombes & The New Breed stood out as solid, professional writers and performers among the assorted amiable blues-groaning, cover-murdering duffers coming on before and after them. Their new record is predictably sound, unflashy and tuneful, though resolutely middle of the road throughout. If you want the latest thing, then try and decipher the new Esben and the Witch single or some such-if you prefer unthreatening pop rock perfectly cooked and seasoned, but sticking religiously to the recipe, then Charly’s your man.
‘Jungles and Tides’ sails breezily atop a tight Rhodes-and-guitar groove, and sounds a good deal like one of Squeeze’s funkier numbers, though some of the sound effects bring to mind the rather naïve squibs and squeaks that disfigured Steve Miller’s attempts at futurism. Although the rather brilliant drum figure at the start of ‘God Knows’ suggests a lost Iggy Pop gem, the song develops into an ELO-style tromp-tromp-tromp-tromp with Charly singing like a particularly disengaged Robbie Williams.
Even duller is the dispiriting ballad ‘Sub-Rosa’, a three chord piano dirge that Elton John or Tom Petty might have rejected as too generic. Some of the playing is pretty, especially the slide guitar swoops and the upper range synthetic strings, but this is not music for the current century.
Happily, the EP ends on a high point, with the taut, playful ‘Molly’, another of Coombes’ funkier efforts, reminding me a little of The Band’s excellent ‘Life is a Carnival’ in its easy extroversion, and genial jumble of instruments and voices. This number, as well as one or two other Charlbury highlights, gives us hope that Charly and his thoroughly reliable band can deliver something a little livelier next time out.