The burden of expectation on Jack Garratt is somewhat unfair. Among the accolades he’s picked up over the past year are Critics Choice Brit Award 2015 and top slot in the BBC Sound of 2016. The latter puts him in the company of previous winners Years & Years, Sam Smith, Jessie J and Ellie Goulding, pop big hitters all. Clearly the music biz is expecting Garratt to make them a lot of money. They will sell him to us any which way they can – credible but pop, electronic underground but viable for the teen-girl fan market, etc. This makes churlish old dogs like me bridle but, really, it's unfair on Garratt, who’s simply a 24-year-old suburban laptop producer-crooner who got lucky following the James Blake/Jamie Woon blueprint. So, let’s listen to his much-anticipated debut album without all the baggage interfering.
The short of it is that much of Garratt's music is exciting but his voice isn't. The glitching soundscape behind “Breathe Life”, the cool electro-funk abstraction of “Worry” and, particularly, the warped percussive attack of “The Love You’re Given” all stand out on an album whose production is generally pristine and imaginative. The exceptions are tracks ruined by a good idea being pushed to cheesy pomp. “I Know All What I Do” starts as an impressively executed folk song, sparse and smart, and “Weathered” sets out as a gripping, sedate dubstep blues with intriguing lyrics, but both of them explode into the horrendous saccharine bombast of “empowerment pop”.
The above, however, is a minor quibble compared to the way Garratt's voice annoys. Enough with the falsetto voice-breaking. If an artist is original – as much of Garratt’s music is – then surely they need to find an original voice? Not the same old Years & Years/Sam Smith-style flatulence, the endless “I’m so vulnerable” template of Jeff Buckley ruining popular music forever. The kids love it, all this bedsit whining, but it has surely been going on long enough. The bubble has to burst. For an artist clearly as musically adept as Garratt, it’s a shame, not that he or his backers will mind because this album will almost certainly clean up.
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