Walter Spencer "Red Romance"

Independent, 2012

He cannot be serious....but I wish he could.

• You may know Walter Spencer from his time as the bass player in the Water Tower Bucket Boys - who appear uncredited on several tracks, as does an unnamed female duet partner - but he has his own solo career pitching a mix of bluegrass, western swing and folk not so far removed from that band mixed with some rockier songs.

• His is a strong cracked folk voice - not a thing of beauty but the kind of instrument that served Woody Guthrie well. Also, there's a glimmer of Guthrie on the topical "One Small Voice" which gets the album off at a hell of a pace; a banjo, fiddle and bass marching song for the Occupy movement - "Wall Street gets a bailout on bad loans that that they lent / Greedy thieving bankers corrupt and fraudulent" - is hardly a message likely to go down badly with most people. Great!

  The album then has its legs cut from under it by "1642" - a jaunty swing song of praise to Walter Spencer's favourite bar, which just seems lightweight after the opener.  The excellent "Well Well Well Well" - driven along by banjo and voice - puts the album back up on its feet.  It's a beautifully crafted and melodic song bewailing the many shortcomings of life.

  Unfortunately most of the rest of the album indulges Walter Spencer's humorous bent - for example "Red Romance" starts off as an excellent retelling of "Pretty Polly" but by the end sinks into slasher movie cliché as the victim just...won't...stay...dead requiring ever more extreme attempts to end her life. "Weed" is a song all about the many virtues of marijuana, and I'm willing to bet it gets a great response live, but recorded it just falls flat.

  When he can drag himself back to do a "straight" song he bangs out a perfect broken love bluegrass number like "Oh the Sun Shines Bright" or a beautiful atmospheric duet like "Now That You're Gone" which contrasts two sets of loneliness ("now that you're gone I'm such a good listener / I'm listening to silence where there once was laughter / now that you're gone I'm left here wondering / what was it now I was after?"). So, to these ears, there's a good album here struggling to make it out from under the burden of throwaway joke songs and light weight filler. It only half manages it, which is a shame.