Better than Meatloaf.
There is a school of thought amongst some music fans that a warbly vocal equates to passion, almost as if the emotions involved in singing the song are too much for the vocalist and they are overcome as they unleash the song on their waiting public. Clearly this is a lot of rubbish as the warbling vocal has been used by many a talent-less singer with one example being Meatloaf, an absolute car-crash of a singer with no redeeming features at all. At all. So if this is the benchmark with which warbly and trembling vocals are to be judged, what shall be made of Billy Vincent and his ‘Sugar & Soap’ release?
Early signs aren’t good, the vocals are left hanging in the wind for the opening part of the track and start to grate very quickly and you are thinking wow, there's finally a singer who is wetter than the lead singer of Geneva (Andrew Montgomery in case you were wondering), a probably not well remembered Scottish band of the 1990s. They were rather beautiful in places but the dictionary definition of bed-wetting in others and the opening part of this song makes you believe that the 00’s version has been uncovered.
And then it wakes up, pianos arrive, guitars are plugged in and turned up and an uplifting chorus appears out of nowhere. Way to nick a late equaliser there Billy, good work, that must have been some half-time team talk.
The b-side ‘Sequins’ further impresses with its ‘boom-chikka-boom’ rhythm and bluesy guitar creating a rather unique sound that the individual vocal style of Mr Vincent is much more suited to. Theres nothing overly wrong with warbly vocals, they just have to be in the right setting and the quirky, as opposed to the overblown rock opera, is probably the way to go. It goes to show that first impressions aren’t always the best and its probably for the best that music reviews aren’t written about the first minute of a cd. Honestly, they’re not.