Hello…

Just a mercifully brief blog to alert you to another lovely review,courtesy of fellow Scot Graham Chalmers. From today’s Harrogate Advertiser;

‘There’s an awful lot of good singer-songwriters around these days so what distinguishes one from the other?
A great song? A great haircut? A great manager?
Born in Perth, resident of Leeds, regular headliner of DMB live events in Ripon, Gary Stewart’s debut album has not been the subject of the sort of big advertising campaign the likes of Jack Johnson, James Blunt, James Morrison  et al enjoyed after David Gray opened the floodgates for that sort of thing nearly a decade ago.
But maybe he should be. Boy Cries Wolf is a stunning collection of folk-inflected modern acoustic sounds, full of lovely ribbon melodies and rippling depths.
With one foot in an Irish pub and the other in a Paul Simon box set, the bearded Stewart may not be an exceptional singer (though he’s certainly not bad) but he is an exceptional writer and arranger of songs.
There’s a few rootsy-tootsy, toe-tapping numbers to keep things upbeat but the album’s two strongest suits are more subtle.
Delicate, jangling lead guitar lines and complex Jekyll and Hyde lyrics - light balanced by shade.
It says something about the slightly pinched nature of this intelligent and pithy Scotsman’s vocal style that the most memorable numbers tend to feature rich harmonies or one-off duets with guest singers such as Ellen Smith or Rosie Doonan.
Still, I’d recommend the following tracks to anyone - the upbeat folk pop of Take Me Down, the Fleet Foxes-like reverential air of Liar Liar, the Simon & Garfunkel feel of In The Pines  (Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme era) and, most of all, the absolutely stone cold classic that is the simultaneously lovely and troubling Behind The Door.
In truth, there are no bad songs on Gary Stewart’s quite brilliant debut album.’

Graham Chalmers

That is all…

G x