Babybird - 'Between My Ears There's Nothing But Music' (Echo) Released 25/09/06

Famed for his ‘You’re Gorgeous’ song that relentlessly pollutes the advertisement airwaves, Stephen Jones, aka Babybird, is back after six years out with his opus ‘Between My Ears There’s Nothing But Music.’ Built around the vocals of Jones and set to the backdrop of various swirling, enchanting and essentially intriguing sounds, the album takes a dreamy persona that manages to captivate the listener throughout it’s 45 minute journey.

Beginning with the serene ‘Too Much’ where the vocals ring out effortlessly over an unyielding beat, it fluently ease’s the listener in to what is next to come. But what greets you in ‘Dive’ is up beat guitar haze along with erratic electronics, creating something not to dissimilar to Beck. The pace is kept up by the peculiar ‘Snails’ and then bought back down in the distant ‘Old Skin’. The album reaches it’s low point during ‘The Little Things’, which sadly diverges towards middle of the road tediousness, and it doesn’t get better on the monotonous ’70’.

However, its in the next track ‘Lighter ‘n’ Spoon’ where sparkling piano and witty lyrics compliment each other, to create a great bit of wishful pop. As you reach the final track, you are soothed in magical layers of instruments with the vocals hovering wistfully above.

Within the album the better moments clearly transpire, but towards the end you cant help but feel let down by the string of dull, unimaginative tracks that stain what is a decent record – for example the painfully bland ‘Shoutabout’, where the urge to skip back to the earlier tracks becomes overwhelming.

A fickle album, but where it succeeds, you can’t help but feel it’s graceful grip take control.