★★★

“The lyrics are quite surgically precise,” says Paul Dempsey in the promo notes for his second solo album.

It’s a strange phrase, strangely put. Surely either something is surgically precise or it’s not. That’s like being absolutely almost exactly near enough. What a clanger, Paul!

After listening to Strange Loop, however, I’m pretty sure the Something For Kate frontman drops odd lines like that intentionally. He has a knack for a lyric that makes your brain double take. Case in point – the refrain to album opener ‘The True Sea’: “She makes the ocean seem like a drop in the ocean”. On first listen it sounds like a broken line, a mixed up metaphor. But hang on – it’s genius. It’s lyrical Inception!

On ‘Lifetime Supply’ he sings: “You been making me up as you go along”. The last track is called ‘(I’ve Got a Feeling) Nobody’s Trying To Tell Me Something’. You get the idea. A bit wrong makes it write. Right?

Musically, Strange Loop is a lot less interesting. It’s all soft folk rock with occasional swerves from the middle of the road – ‘Hey History (Don’t Go Changin’)’ goes full-blown Brian May while ‘Morningless’ is angsty and angular. But these are the exceptions.

This standard soft rock is lifted by Dempsey’s way with words. But he would say that, wouldn’t I?

Paul Dempsey’sStrange Loopis out now thorugh EMI/Universal.

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