Mark Morriss: 'Memory Muscle'

It’s nigh on an impossible task escaping the spectre of past glories, but it’s a challenge Mark Morriss heads with easy going affability. The former Bluetone marks 12 years with his first full length debut, ‘Memory Muscle’, and it’s very much an album made in the mould of the man himself.

Clean cut, balanced and wholly likeable, it doesn’t dazzle but nor does it disappoint. There are shades of the easy going melody characteristic of The Bluetones and there are touches of the organ drenched days of The Charlatans, but it’s a welcome flashback as opposed to a spiteful glance deriding the merits of Britpop.

‘Memory Muscle’ drifts and lulls in swells of piano drenched melody as Moriss’s distinctive warble caresses every note. Tracks segue into each other with understated consistency and intricate subtlety, combining the mildly jaunty and the melancholic with an effortless ear for a pop-folk ditty. The xylophone-led Teenage Fanclub cover of ‘Alcoholiday’ is a particularly sweet treat, while ‘Lemon & Lime’ is the most obvious lean towards past band sentimentality.

This might all sound comprehensively underwhelming, but it seems he’s a man content to sit back and put his soul searching to paper and fret board. More likely to kick himself into a pair of slippers than kick up a fuss, it wasn’t The Bluetones' style back then, and it certainly isn’t his now. And if he can live with that, so can we.

Released on 26th May 2008 by Fruitcake.

Written by Will Martin.