Kieran Goss "I'll Be Seeing You" (Cog Communications, 2010)

Goss's relaxed eigth album, recorded in Austin Texas

'I'll Be Seeing You' consists of a dozen tracks of gentle folky-country sung over a series of soft acoustic guitar arrangements. Kieran Goss has a pleasant voice which is perfectly matched to his choice of song - for the most part simple love songs - co-written by him with such notables as Beth Nielsen Chapman and Kimmie Rhodes amongst others. The result is a collection of upbeat songs, and even on what are ostensibly sad songs, Goss remains a glass half full kind of guy, and the tempo and vocal phrasings give the lie to any apparent down beat in the lyrics. Only on 'Over And Over' does a modicum of regret and dejection break through, and this is as much due to the vocal assistance of Kimmie Rhodes as anything else. A somewhat similar effect is achieved on the title song, a pledge to meet again after death and again it is the backing vocals that really make it.

However, Kieran Goss is much more at home with joy : 'The Reason Why' epitomises this - it's nothing short of a musical grin, bouncing along with an actual skip in its step whilst Goss takes on the mantle of a country crooner. It’s easy to imagine the hand-clapping along this must get in a live performance.

This is certainly not a poor album, it's polished and squeaky clean, the lyrics do perhaps have a tendency to fall into moon-spoon-June, but the playing throughout is smooth and uniformly gentle. As noted above, Goss has a voice that's very easy on the ear, comes across as resolutely cheerful and would probably offer up a good,if unchallenging, evening's entertainment live (he has, by the way, an extensive UK tour in February/March 2010). For all that is good in it, however, it didn't really touch me - it's not something you'd switch off if it were on the radio, but the lack of variation of mood in the end made it unmemorable.

Date review added:  Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Reviewer:  Jonathan Aird
Reviewers Rating:
Related web link:  Kieran Goss's Home Page