Rory McVicar “Another Sleepless Night With Rory McVicar”

Independent, 2012

Singer-songwriter and filmmaker Rory McVicar is a talented individual and concise in his work. Both his songwriting and arrangements are finely tuned and artful plus, his vocals too are carefully thought out as he provides a form of indie folk pop.

• McVicar, who the last I heard was based in Norwich, has an innovative flare and at times, a little quirkiness to his music. For assistance he has called on the services of members of alt-rock unit, Magoo and former Monkey Swallows The Universe front woman, Nat Johnson.

• I recall, with no little affection of an EP she made called 'Dirty Rotten Soul' that has McVicar play admirable acoustic guitar. Created on one evening when he actually, could not sleep and spent a ‘sleepless’ night as one would anticipate the material is often melancholy. Although he does and timely so, pick up the tempo as on the delightful “Down, Down, Down”. With a slightly punk-ish feel, melody wise such the guitar and jerky rhythm and vocals he speaks of wanting to go home and kindly asks her if she will. It is a really fine song and possible the album's finest that could easily have been written thirty years ago and easily been a hit back then.

  Keeping up the good and enterprising work, the acoustic warmed “I Will Take The Blame” has a folksy feel as acoustic guitar guides the listener into Rory’s disarming lyrics and a melody that could just as easily been hatched by a would-be Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton or Phil Ochs during New York City’s great folk scene. What immediately follows are two pieces that would rid you of insomnia through their monotony, although normal services is resumed via the electric guitar aided “O!The Shame”, only to take an unhealthy electronic stance for the dreary title-cut “Another Sleepless Nights”. Hence, he left me thinking if only he had left out some tracks and made a six-track EP, that way he would have had a better, well rounded recording.