Newry’s Justin Grant is a curious fellow, the former ‘Sugar Island’ singer is just about to release his debut album, ‘Break the Wing’. It’s not what I was expecting.
From the new single ‘Cry For you’, places Grant quite firmly in the MOR category, a lot closer to Daniel O’Donnell than Bono. It’s a pretty inoffensive track with a chorus that will get into your head. The overall production on the track is very safe and a tad too predictable. This continues into the title track ‘Break the Wing’. The backing vocals and repetitive vocal lines are tiresome. Again the chorus is melodic and probably will get some radioplay on local radio but it seems a little formulaic.
Grant does have a good voice though and a nice vocal style. At points, like the intro to ‘Paper Moon’, he isn’t a million miles away from the sound and style of The 4 of Us circa Classified Personal but the production doesn’t so him justice.
Grant can write songs though, they are melodic, ‘Devils at Your Door’ and ‘Goodbye Smile’ show this but the the style of this album seems to leave Grant in between genres and markets. Maybe he is aiming at an older audience and is happy with that. This writer can’t help feeling he would have a wider audience if the tracks were striped back to a more minimal production. Then, Grant could easily have the same career path as some successful fellow MOR Irishmen, like Kieran Goss.