Album Review - JOE BROOKS

Album reviews by ACID
Artist: JOE BROOKS
Album: A Reason to Swim
Label: Columbia/Sony Music

THE British singer/songwriter and musician Joe Brooks got his debut as a MySpace musician.In the manner that befits lucky amateurs who go viral online via social networks or video clips, Brooks released two independent EPs and was named UK’s top unsigned artiste by 2008. A doubtful sort of moniker, perhaps, but he also garnered an impressive 11 million song plays. 

A Reason to Swim is Brooks’ second album, following the debut Constellation Me in 2010. This one is said to be independent and fan-funded (which is always an interesting study in how far he departs from the first ‘commercial’ sound).  I always appreciated moves like this because it is a true study of how autonomous a recording artiste can be, in the songs that are crafted and the new styles that are eked out.

Musically, A Reason to Swim does have a series of hits and misses. The six-track album starts off with a pall for me, with an odd sense of repetitiveness between OK and Green Eyes (the first and third track respectively), which really don’t offer anything in terms of what is either impressive or memorable.

I Find the Light in You is a song about relationship redemption and personal salvation, and there will undoubtedly be a lot of comparisons with Coldplay’s superstar vocalist Christ Martin (in singing chops) in Holes Inside. This song, together with My Heart Will Wait, could’ve easily been mistaken for an early-ish Coldplay tune but they are also surprisingly the two most gorgeous tracks in the album.

Brooks, who managed a quietly successful transition to the United States as well, has enough of international fans in Asia that he was able to sign with Sony Music in Korea and Malaysia – I think his fans by and large won’t be disappointed. There were some which were off the mark for me, but the gems he had in this effort really shone.