Jamie Scott & The TownPark Bench TheoriesReview

Billed on his MySpace page as a cross between Jeff Buckley and Stevie Wonder, one listen to Jamie Scott & The Town soon perks your ears up to the fact that you are actually listening to the warbling love child of James Morrison and James Blunt. Now really, how many singer-songwriters called James is there room for in our musical consciences?

Granted, Jamie is talented and self-taught. By the age of nine he could play the piano, guitar and was penning his own songs on the back of Frostie packets, but when it comes to his songs, they’re like a pair of brand new trainers, just too white. They need stamping on by your mates to make them look worn, feel part of you and tell a story.

Forthcoming single, “When Will I see Your Face Again”, is a romantic if not formulaic ditty, all soaring violins and Coldplay inspired keys with a bit of Jamiroquai skitting to polish it off. It’s only on more folky inspired, “London Town” we hear something different. Rippling piano, organ and rousing cello’s bestow a Paul Simon-esque essence. However, Scott’s voice gets drowned by over-produced backing and misplaced electric guitar which distracts from the sincerity. Scott has yet to define his own style. This is nowhere more obvious than in “Rise Up”, as Scott contemplates: ‘you think you’re not beautiful/ but you’re so beautiful…’ I can hear Blunty on the phone to his lawyers as I type.

Jamie Scott & The Town are at their best when the tracks are stripped down to basics, exposing his purity of enunciation and genuinely beautiful voice. You just can’t help thinking he’d sound much more rootsy and soul-inspired if he’d downed a bottle of JD, washed it back with some gravel and got in a fight with Morrison and Blunt. Now that I’d like to hear.