“Andy's a singer/songwriter from down south and I once went to see him play in an Earls Court basement club, sometime in the late 90s. He's sent me all his releases since. He has a beautiful, almost choir-boy voice, and sings earnest, quite delicately calibrated songs straight from the heart…the voice and words are the thing with Andy, and both are in fine shape.”

Being a longtime fan of Scott’s I respect his musical opinions and decided to check out Smythe.  Andy, in addition to being an intelligent, gifted songwriter with a clear, earnest voice in the tradition of Billy Bragg, Tim Buckley and The Finn Brothers, plays piano, synths, acoustic guitars, clarinet, organ, mandolin and accordion on his third album, Live For The Future, confirming the fact that this man is a musician’s musician with a poet’s heart.

Smythe’s influences range from classical (Bach/Mozart) to Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Rufus Wainwright and The Waterboys.  Joining him on Live For The Future are Peter Readman (strings, French horn & harp) and Chris Payne (violin, mandolin, piano, recorders & backing vocals) while his live band members are Les Elvin on bass, Barry Targett on violin/guitar and John Barley on piano/oboe.  Themes of “protest against war and increasing industrialization at the expense of the planet” and “a utopian image of England” run through Live For The Future but upon careful listening, I can’t help but think that Smythe’s medieval past life has somehow collided with Peter, Paul & Mary and Herman’s Hermits to give birth to their bastard child.

A feel-good record, this is not.  It is a thought-provoking, melancholic look at the world through the eyes of an ominous armchair activist who wants to feel positive about the future but can’t quite get there.  The opening track, “We Love Our Children”, opens with a dramatic BBC news report on the conflict at the Gaza Strip and is punctuated by sirens, screaming and Smythe’s passionate protest.  Thankfully, the next song is the cheekily, upbeat Celtic folk song standout, “Whiskey Priest”, followed by a lovely, sad ballad called “When I Needed Love.” Highlighted with the gorgeous harp, strings and oboe, its luscious music is starkly contrasted with bleak lyrics:

“See my shadow in a burnt out car
My reflection in the broken glass
Being as I am
There is no being at all

Search for custom
Neath the spires and the steeples
Only way I know to feed my needle
Find a way to get my fix
The only way I can exist

Pray for my life
The way it used to be
Before the brown seduced me
Stand and say you care
When you were never there”

“So Far From America” is an acoustic guitar folk song about fighting for one’s life in the Third World and then suddenly the CD takes a sharp turn towards the light with a liltingly poetic piano ballad unearthing the past glory of the “Garden of Sweet England.”  The title track, “Live For The Future” is an epic, fervent piano ballad that barely masks the singer’s quiet screams about what’s wrong with our world and the price we’ve paid for the greed and lust of our leaders.

“Another Rainy Day” (in England) is curiously, a more heartening, 60’s pop rock number that I really like because of its catchy chorus, reminiscent of early Kinks or The Searchers.  The next track opens with Smythe’s voice disguised briefly by a fuzz box before tricking the listener with a carnival music landscape in which he spins a yarn about the violence endured by the children of “My Old School” at the hands of their teachers.  Bleeding heart romantics will love the medieval piano ballad “Ophelia” which belongs in a Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare adaptation.  “Our Gang”, a 60’s pop rock ode to the long lost days of youth and repentant sins is possibly the most positive song on this CD which comes just in the nick of time before the penultimate track, a requiem entitled “Warden I’m Ready”, before it closes with a repeat of “We Love Our Children.”

Live For The Future is lyrically, an often heart-heavy listening experience, cloaked by its choice of instruments and accomplished melodies as well as Smythe’s choir boy voice, but it’s not for the disheartened or weak of spirit.

www.andysmythe.com
www.myspace.com/andysmythe

Christine Bode
c.bode@partyinkingston.com