Review from Rob F at Leicester Bangs

Below is a review of 'Heathcliffian Surly' by Rob F at Leicester Bangs:

Marmaduke Dando Hutchings (to give the man his full name) is a London based songwriter with a penchant for morose balladry, and frisky drunken jigs. That’s what his MySpace page tells me, and it’s not far wrong. Reference is also made to a family link to pirate stock, and the popularity of Dando’s music within the halls of Parliament. Perhaps that’s true, too. The image of Dando on the cover of Heathcliffian Surly is one of an 18th century consumptive, probably not fit for a life at sea, but certainly healthy and wealthy enough to buy a seat in a rotten borough.

Musically, his influences appear purely European, with scarcely a hint of what we scribblers call rock and roll. Instead it is the influence and heritage of composers like Kurt Weill and Jacques Brel that Dando most liberally borrows from, though feel free to include names like Scott Walker and Tom Waits, who also both know their way around the European songwriting tradition. The results might have been calamitous. We English aren’t known for this sort of thing, especially with material that lives ponderously at the dark end of la rue (see what I did there?). Dando’s no Jake Thackray, sardonic witticisms are decidedly thin on the ground, though a certain gallows humour permeates Heathcliffian Surly, or at least I hope it does. Song titles such as “Dead To The World”, “The Last Drink” and “No Tomorrow” give the game away, though they’re tempered by “Life Can’t Get Any Better” and “Give Me Detumescence”, the latter causing difficulties for both my spell-check and the Cambridge University Press dictionary. I think it’s something to do with the reduction of swelling. It’s that sort of album.

There’s much here to be worried about. The gothic overtones, the carny vibe, the relentless doom and gloom, yet none of it seems in any way detrimental to an album that is undoubtedly one of my favourites of the year so far. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that if I hear a better singer-songwriter album by the end of 2010 it’ll be a Christmas miracle. Check out the man’s MySpace page for further details and to listen to a couple of songs.

http://www.leicesterbangs.co.uk/oct10-1.html