Nic Armstrong, 'The Greatest White Liar' (One Little Indian) Released 12/04/04

With a fashionable Toe Rag production job you wouldn’t expect thumping house tracks on this debut from a twenty-four year old, displaced Geordie.  What you might not have bargained for however, is authenticity taken a step too far.

Nic Armstrong you see, has a love of the sixties – but forget about the latter half of the decade, for we are talking strictly pre summer of love here.  When Macca shook his mop top, Herman’s Hermits were wooing Mrs. Brown’s daughter, and Freddie and the Dreamers were just dozing off.  If the Coral plunder psychedelia for the re-consumption by the kids of today, then Armstrong seems to have taken up the challenge and gone for the jugular – the stuff you’ve never really bothered to re-discover.

If there is a plus, then it's the production which works admirably to push forward the dated songwriter.  The guitars fuzz, the vocals are treated with fitting style.  It's hard not to don the shiny suit and winklepickers and click you fingers to the beat - however there is still a big But with a capital B, and that but is the point of this.

There is nothing wrong with simple songs, but the tales of teenage angst present here are from another era.  There’s no bling, no mobile phones – the kind of pressures the kids these days are up against.  You are left with the impression that this is most likely to appeal to those who were there in the first place.