albums and tracks

Editor's rating

Francis Anthony 'Eg' White is pretty much your textbook music biz veteran, having commenced his career in faux-Motown popsters Brother Beyond, gone on to score critical acclaim but commercial disaster with shortlived duo Eg and Alice, before finally settling on a behind-the-scenes life as songwriter for hire.

A few years back he flogged 'Leave Right Now' to Will Young, netting himself an Ivor Novello award and presumably enough cash to buy a medium-sized archipelago. This is a good job, as his status as the minted bridesmaid, never the famous bride (he left Brother Beyond before they became popular) won't be changed by second solo album Adventure Man.

White's plaintive, wonky voice is enjoyable enough, and there are some half-decent tunes, but ultimately the record gets trapped somewhere uncomfortable between earnest intimacy and showbiz artifice. There's a general '70s thing going on, from Neil Young-ish folk through pared-down white-boy funk and Elton John-esque balladry, but, sadly, years of the business seem to have given him an undue sense of razzle-dazzle.

Showers of strings and deluges of cod-soulful backing singers drench the climax of near enough everything in a sickly-sweet slick. The return of old mucker Alice Temple for the tense, sparse 'Pull Me Through' is welcome, but this has to be balanced against the hide-behind-your-fingers-cringey 'Weird Friendless Kid', which potentially aims for wryness, but comes across like some exercise in how to write as painfully worthy a song as physically possible.

Probably none of this will make you muster the energy to dislike Eg White; but Will Young is going to love him, because he's not quitting the day job anytime soon.

Andrzej Lukowski