Review from Shane O’ Leary at Unpeeled

Below is a review of 'Heathcliffian Surly' by Shane O’ Leary at Unpeeled:

Obviously that headline should read 'genius with beard plays piano', but that's no fun and would undermine any claim to dyslexia. However, we have found a genius and he does, for the moment at least, have a beard.

Said genius also has a name. We're presuming that Marmaduke Dando is a nom de warble as opposed to something his poor, gin-soaked old mum scrawled on his birth certificate before expiring with a fit of the giggles. Said genius also has an album to purvey, convey, sell, flog and place before the bemused and largely non-bearded masses. Said album is called "Heathcliffian Surly" and the big money is on it being a reference to a certain character that sent the muse, licketty-split, to both Kate Bush and Cliff Richard, a threesome I don't wish to visualise again, but an album we should all hear again and again and... you get the idea. There is a proper review on the 'Everything Else' page, but skip that and skip directly to www.marmadukedando.com

Heathcliffian', but we'll have a go... Alas, the artiste known as Marmaduke Dando is a
beautiful breeze of fetid air as Bela Lugosi amuses himself, Miss Havisham style in a basement once inhabited by some kind of Bryan Ferry/Brian Eno mutation.

Knockers and the insensitively souless will point out that this is an album with more arch than Archway, more affectation than an incoming princess and far too clever to be good for itself. We call those people 'Conservatives' and point out that "Heathcliffian Surly" is the fine dining version of 'Rocky Horror' and that Marmaduke Dando may well be camper than Baden Powell, but he slips through genres more slickly than a Mozart made of eels. Take something like "The Last Drink", a honky tonk, slow-mo piano stamp around a bordello bar, something that both Leon Russell and Hinge & Bracket would be comfortable with and perfect for. This is such a lovely record that I'm liable to come over all sensible and suggest that you buy it, a
lot and now.

IS IT ANY GOOD? We don't get a lot of genius down our way, but we know it when we hear it.