Debut album from Irish songster.
Shibuya Crossings is the brainchild of guitarist, singer and songwriter Declan Harrington, originally from Belfast and former member of Jude. Only recruiting a band for live purposes this is a solo affair, with Harrington writing, playing and producing the debut album 'Songs For Lovesick Teenagers'.
Opener 'Typically Everybody Thinks You're Dead' has a very '90s sound, comprising of a Suede meets The Auteurs style, yet manages to sidestep being anywhere near as engaging as either band. With notably Northern sounding vocals despite Harrington's Irish descent, the vocals make themselves seem forced and quickly seem whining. The careening guitar sound gets rather irritating after a while, culminating in a relief at the song's end.
'See Me On A Sunday' has an intro mirroring that of Cast's mid-90s ballad 'Walkaway', and shows the Britpop era indie influence clearly. Opening with the line "stuck between the rock n' roll and a hard place" the trite attempt at cleverly updating a worn cliché falls very flat. The whining style of the vocals are very similar to those of Starsailor's equally nasal singer.
'Best I've Ever Had' sounds more contemporary thanks to the drastically overused inclusion of electronic beats. Whilst they can be very effective it seems to be becoming an easy fix to liven up uninspired material with synthesisers and keyboards. 'You Have To Try (15 Minutes of Fate)'sees another attempt at 'cleverly' updating the "fifteen minutes of fame" cliché, which just helps to show how 'clever' this artist thinks he is. This song is the least annoying so far but does nothing to make itself memorable besides the increasingly annoying whine of the vocals.
'All I Need To Say' is a simple and fairly slow song with less strained vocals. The use of brass instruments works well in giving this song a relaxed pace and none of the previous songs swagger, which is certainly a positive development. The strings led 'A Little Bit More' also manages to break free of the unconvincing curse of many of this album's other songs, perhaps suggesting that Harrington's voice would be better suited to soft acoustic than the brash indie showcased earlier.
This album is largely flawed with a sadly sparse amount of promise. The songs which avoid wearing down your last nerve might be worth investigating, but unfortunately those are in an obvious minority here.