Patrick Cleandenim- Baby Comes Home
From only the album sleeve, the track names and his made up (surely) surname, the 22 year old art student from Kansas, home to small time respectable bands The Decemberists and the Anniversary provokes within, an odd mystery surrounding this debut release. Yet unfortunately for the artist, regardless of the initial hype, you never really feel let in on the big secret.
Patrick Cleandenim's Baby Comes Home is a sassy, finger clicking debut, ignoring conventional genre type and covering a wide range of musical preferences. The albums appeal ranges from back street jazz café to centre stage theatrical performance style atmosphere. But, is it all a little bit too much? "Rocket to the moon" is the albums highlight track, creating a dancing in the rain, swing style little number. Unfortunately, no other track on the album can meet it, nor is rocket to the moon anything exceptional and after three or four tracks, it becomes evident that perhaps the studious Cleandenim is taking everything a little bit too seriously.
The title track Baby Comes Home opens up the album with a long intro and a significantly longer outro, all well and good. Yet from here onwards, the apparent winning formula of "suspense" becomes a regular occurrence and regrettably rather tedious. Its almost as though you aren't invited to fall in love with the album, become engrossed within the tracks or find the personality of the perceptible pompous art student endearing. You are merely expected or asked to enjoy the album, which I did to an extent.
It isn't terrible and instead I found after a few listens, Baby Comes Home is a refreshing contrast to the indie rock material pumped out of every region. The songs by no means reflect his young age and show a glimpse of the maturity that this young man serves. The lyrics aren't all that fantastic and at times, like the openings, become a little repetitive. The final product could have done without quite so much echo and reverb on both the vocals of Patrick Cleandenim and, shockingly his backing singers- a real downside to the album. No doubt, live performances are much more effective as this is truly an authentic theatre resembling debut. Not bad, but not to rush for, and if in need of an escape from commercial material, this wouldn't be my top choice.