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Innovative Leisure/PRES [Release date 31.03.23]
‘The Fooler’ is the sixth album from Nick Waterhouse and his last album, 2021′s ‘Promenade Blue’ was a real find and musical highlight for this reviewer. Recorded in just a few days with Mark Neill – who is perhaps best known for earning a Grammy for his work on The Black Key’s album “Brothers” – the album sees Nick once again combining rhythm and blues, garage rock, radio soul and more into his own unique musical mix.
As regards the subject matter on the album Nick says, “Many of the stories in the record come from that feeling of plasticity. What is memory? What is time? What is love between two human beings like in this imaginary city? It’s Cubist.
A listener sees the angles of my life – and inexorably, my career – reflected in this work from all sides at once. I started thinking again about my university days, about modernist writers like Virginia Woolf, Christopher Isherwood, Hart Crane, or Ford Maddox Ford; about memory and how it betrays you; what you can see and what you can’t.”
‘(No) Commitment’ is a superb 1960′s trowback tune and one that would delight the listeners of Boom Radio – and that’s meant as a compliment, not a dig at the music for its old fashioned feel. The soul side of his music shows on ‘Are You Hurting’, whilst the title track is a vocal treat sung over a laid back backing, with piano and acoustic guitar to the fore.
Can’t quite love the slightly twee backing vocals on ‘Hide and Seek’, (‘Late In The Garden’ is another that doesn’t quite match the quality on the rest of the album) yet they redeem themselves on ‘Play To Win’, which also features a lovely bit of piano and trumpet.
Close your eyes and you can easily picture yourself in an American diner or coffee bar circa 1963. The music and singing of Nick Watershouse really do transport you back in time. ‘The Problem With A Street’ being a prime example. The care and attention that goes into the music is something to marvel at and it has that timeless feel, thanks to a sterling job on the production side of things.
Nick Waterhouse hits the mark again with another album full of variety and melody, all anchored in the musical sounds of the late 1950s/early 1960s. ***1/2
Review by Jason Ritchie
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