Aha! More dot to dot music making.
A few years ago, the opinion of Hollywood was that the English were all villains. For the period between Die Hard and, um, Die Hard With A Vengeance, there was a influx of Blighty born and bred terrorists, criminals and general bad eggs. It remains a mystery as to why this might be (to an American, one suspects, ancient culture and heritage may come across as being decidedly shifty) but its something that has clearly stuck. Captain Wilberforce, by name, sounds like he should sport a vast handlebar moustache and be commanding hapless soldiers into battle. Which is odd, because by sound he likes a lot like generic Americana indie that would sit happily alongside Aimee Mann and Michael Penn.
Captain Wilberforce does a fair job with “Everyone Loves A Villain”. The songs are reasonably interesting, well written and contain enough of that A-thru-B-to-C formula that best serves the genre. Wilberforce himself is a controlling and coherent voice, if not a particularly dynamic one. There are no musical flourishes that will set bedroom based musos to search the internet for tabulation, but it hardly slouches either. Essentially, “Everyone Loves A Villain” does everything it sets out to do and does it well, but, as with all things, this isn't necessarily the best way to make a good and powerful record that will stick in people's minds and warm their hearts.
The main problem with “Everyone Loves A Villain” is that it is utterly ordinary. Yes, the melodies and capability of musicianship and arrangement is good, but this is surely the norm for all bands and artists that rise from the sweaty, mates-only gigs and make it to the other side of the heavy doors of record company boardrooms. The virtual absence of anything even remotely dynamic or exciting will just bore that majority of people. Songs cannot be criticised for being bad - because they're not at all - but they do lack a good reason to make you want to listen to it.
Sadly for Captain Wilberforce, “Everyone Loves A Villain” just doesn't cut it. There are no reasons to dislike it per se, but there are even fewer reasons to actually like it, never mind get excited or energised by it. There is potential on offer here and one can imagine songs going places that would get the blood going, but sadly they never actually materialise aurally. A band to watch maybe, but this, for the more demanding or concerting music fan, should probably be left alone.