Danny McCrum Band: Awake and Restless (McCrum)

 |   |  1 min read

Danny McCrum Band: What's Wrong With Trying To Live Right?
Danny McCrum Band: Awake and Restless (McCrum)

Here's a guess, this smart pop-rock album from an Auckland singer-songwriter and his tight, crackling band won't get much attention.

The reason?

There's not been much sympathy or space for well-crafted adult pop-rock in New Zealand, the Finns and Dave Dobbyn aside.

Critics generally prefer something with a little more quirkiness and edge, and straight-ahead bands like this one don't fit the profile. Oddly enough -- or maybe it isn't so odd -- the public tends to embrace such artists, although usually of the imported variety. So McCrum might just not even fall between the cracks in the local media, he might just be ignored.

Personally I find it hard to fault the delivery and snappiness of the band on these 11 tracks -- although the running order doesn't flatter them at all: Stuck in Traffic up second might have been shoved towards the end and What's Wrong With Trying to Live Right? hauled up a little.

But that's a minor quibble and this well-crafted adult pop-rock deserves a hearing outside of a small circle.

McCrum and band play a straight bat to what they do -- short and sharp songs played with little extravagence aside from some excellent guitar work by McCrum and Ben Jurisich.

McCrum sounds little like a less frantic Jimmy Barnes at times, and he has a lived in voice which should have wide appeal. It certainly did when he and Jurisich opened in an acoustic set before Joan Armatrading and Bryan Ferry. That was a mature crowd and they are notoriously difficult to please because they really just want the headliners -- but they offered up a genuinely appreciative response.

So if any of your friends were there and ask who those two young guys were up first you can tell them. And tell them about this album.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Opensouls: Standing in the Rain (Dirty)

Opensouls: Standing in the Rain (Dirty)

To be honest, I wasn't expecting to like this quite as much as I do. Certainly some songs lack a soulful punch and you'd wish for more power in the vocals of Tyra at times. But these people... > Read more

Ov Pain: Ov Pain (cocomuse.co.nz)

Ov Pain: Ov Pain (cocomuse.co.nz)

In the musical microcosm that is Dunedin/Port Chalmers these days, we might allow ourselves to consider the duo at the core of this multi-referencing Goth-cum-drone-cum-claustrophobically... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Phil Davison: Straight, Bent and Uncut (iTunes)

Phil Davison: Straight, Bent and Uncut (iTunes)

When Adolphe Sax invented the instruments in the mid 19th century which bear his name, he could hardly have predicted just what musical diversity this family of horns would encompass. As an... > Read more

The Incredible Bongo Band: Bongo Rock (Elite)

The Incredible Bongo Band: Bongo Rock (Elite)

Formed in the early 70s by record company exec and musician Michael Viner with composer Perry Botkin Jnr, the Incredible Bongo Band was an informal gaggle of musicians who got together to... > Read more