Jordan O’Shea has been climbing the musical ladder in Oxford recently. He’s played with many in the past three months – Phil McMinn, Natalie Duncan and Juan Zelada, to name but three. His EP, ‘Her name was _French Cinema_’ was released in August last year, having been recorded in what O’Shea himself refers to as ‘The Shedquarters’, aka his garden shed. As for influences, think City And Colour with a hint of Bon Iver and some Neil Halstead-esque songwriting.

Despite this recent activity, I really wasn’t sure about his debut album, Desperation, My Dear, at first. Some of the tracks sounded somewhat similar to one another, and I found some of them rather forgettable. However, O’Shea’s talent is undeniable, and there are some nuggets of gold on this record.

‘The Hopeless Saint Jude’ is a rather mesmerising opening track. The soft, warm piano and contrasting layered vocals are complemented by simple, primitive drumming in the first section, and followed by a more refined sound in the second half, with O’Shea’s voice becoming more defined and emotional, raising to a near shout at the end. The lyricism on ‘Wolves Dressed As Humans’ is also worth mentioning: ‘We’re all just wolves / Desperate and hungry / Don’t want to be lonely’ – an interesting observation on mankind’s need for company and recognition? ‘Liars and Lyrebirds’ builds from a slow, ethereal start with reverbed vocals and the album title as lyric (‘Desperation, My Dear’) into a bold, trumpet-infused ending, reminiscent of the opening of Bon Iver’s ‘Calgary’. ‘The Whistle, The Watch’ boasts some of the best songwriting on the album and a wonderful acoustic guitar melody. The end section of the track is more upbeat, and a nice break from the melancholy mood of the rest of the record, with tambourines and whistling aplenty. All of this together makes it one of the album’s best.

‘The Author’ is also upbeat, but don’t be fooled – the lyrics reveal the life of a man consumed by guilt. Although a good track, it jumps around in tempo slightly too much in its middle portion. ‘Wintervention’ is another of the weaker tracks on the album – to be blunt, it’s rather dull. It’s very slow, and nothing musically interesting really happens – there’s no exciting instrumentation or lyrics here.

The album closes with ‘Forty-four Sunsets’, a beautiful instrumental track. Its soaring background noise complements the piano, and gentle, woody xylophone notes at the end of the piece make this a truly wonderful concluding track.

This is a record that shows streaks of greatness, but at times, can be too slow, with not enough happening. However, there are some very well constructed, lush sounds that cannot be ignored: Jordan O’Shea’s sound, although a bit rough around the edges and in need of some plumping up, really has potential and could go on to be really great.