Glen Brady.photoThe singer songwriter is something that’s always been present in some form in modern music. At their best they can be the social conscience of an entire generation, holding account the powers that be; frail men and women pointing out the failings of society not to be judgemental, but instead to throw light on our continuous journey towards a harmonic society, let alone one that even works on the most fundamental of levels. The genre at its worst however is a sea of middle class broken hearts that accompany our trips to Marks and Spencer’s and Tesco. This is not to pour scorn on the entire genre. The point is it’s a fine line to walk for any musician.

Glenn Brady is not a man without talent. He possesses an impressive vocal range and some of the arrangements here are clever. The problem is that the songs never really tilt on the right side of mediocrity anywhere on ‘From The Dusk Till The Dawn’. First track Fear is a well-executed radio friendly jaunt with a typically uplifting sentiment. Smooth harmonies and tight instrumentation serve it well but there’s no depth here to lift proceedings above the ordinary. “A night’s rain pours outside a window pane/ Like a melody in my soul“, croons Brady at the opening of the song. It’s the type of sentiment that pops up again and again throughout the EP. It sounds passable when coated in Brady’s agreeable delivery but on paper it’s nothing more than a lucky dip of words as a result of a tear jerking game of scrabble.

Kerb follows and here ‘From The Dusk Till The Dawn’ takes a detour into the bizarre. Suddenly Brady adopts a thick Irish brogue over a funky acoustic guitar riff. The result falls somewhere between Christy Moore and Maroon 5 in a toe curling mess. Unfocused and with sloppy delivery it’s frankly a poor offering. This is the only drastic misstep here as Midnight gets proceedings back on track. By far the best track on offer, the song builds slowly to a sprawling climax that although is not the pinnacle of originality, it is much more rewarding than it has any right to be.

The final track Never Lay Down keeps the momentum going with a nice guitar intro and again some good vocals from Brady, but the lyrics quickly revert to type with the bland refrain of “Rise above your knees/ Don’t you ever lay down.” This type of pandering is not the fault of Brady alone but instead the product of an exhausted genre. Too often singer songwriters resort to these mindless pep talks to lure the listener into some sort of easy-listening motivational speaking utopia. It’s a musical scene that has been long exhausted of any real relevance and over populated with residents who have nothing to say beyond paraphrasing Gerry Springer’s final thought. That said not all of ‘From The Dusk Till The Dawn’ is bad and Brady has a knack for a radio friendly number when the mood takes him, but the music here barely provokes any reaction at all and as a result is infuriatingly mediocre.