Although this album was recorded in Nashville in just three days using all live takes it has nothing of the spontaneity or rawness you might expect. Instead it just sounds slick yet soulless.
On top of this, instead of avoiding lyrical platitudes, the Irish born singer songwriter piles them on, one after another. You are advised to "listen to your heart" (Safe And Sound) to "follow your dream" Round The Next Bend and informed, with no apparently irony, that Imagination is "the key to change the world".
In Tough People, Reel blatantly appropriates the riff from 'Here Comes Your Man'; an act that only serves to emphasize the gulf between The Pixies' inspired Indie rock and this bland Americana.
Ben Reel's website
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