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Monday 8 October 2012

Record Review - Johnno Casson


JOHNNO CASSON
Window Shopping

Johnno Casson has been around for a while in one guise or another. Formally known as Snippet (remember them?) he released four EPs. Window Shopping is his first full-length album under his real moniker.

This time he’s combined the electronica of his former self with a newly purchased acoustic guitar. Combining the two he's achieved a kind of contemporary singer songwriter vibe (Kate Nash springs to mind) that's seen him described as sitting somewhere between Ray Davies and Badly Drawn Boy. While there's something of the flâneur about Casson, his ode to his hometown of Colchester, 'Truth', just doesn’t have the innate sense of melancholy and wit that the former Kink has in spades.

At times he invokes the spirit of Squeeze’s Tilbrook and Difford to draft his songs. But again there’s nothing to match their brand of infuriatingly catchy pop on this outing either. It's all pretty derivative, featureless stuff. If anything Window Shopping sounds like an album of Flight Of The Conchords out-takes... but without the jokes. Not that Flight Of The Conchords are that funny. Casson isn't trying to be funny either, at least I don't think he is.

Maybe once he’s figured out how to stand beyond the crowd he'll develop a voice of his own. Until that time he'll remain just another face in the crowd. Much like the people of Colchester.

John Blaney

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