This is the second album by the English musician formerly of Kent and now living near Brighton. Ford has created a 9 song, 35 minute record that showcases his higher than average pitched voice, which sounds like slickness mingled with a touch of rasp. This, seemingly, is the only remarkable stand-out-of-the-crowd thing about him. But then again, that isn’t even true when you consider the way James Blunt used that very formula to make it big, and now that type of voice has proliferated the male singer-songwriter genre. Which is not to say that David Ford is a post-Blunt production, his experience in the indie band Easyworld from a few years back shows this, it just means he now grazes upon the vast fields of middle-class England that Blunt, Morrison, Nutini and Faulkner all do. Because although the lyrics are a bit better than all of those other guys, his music still gives off the same inoffensive, uninspiring feeling that they do. The thing is, though, this album isn’t devoid of inspiration in actual content.

The first song, “Go To Hell”, uses strings and a ukulele to create an upbeat sound that is at odds with the bitterness of the sentiment, “Go to hell”, and the self-pitying/loathing of the lyrics. It’s a fresh and sweeping sound to start the album, showing a good sense of progression, (which is used in other songs throughout the album), such as when the drums appear at 1min 30secs and raises the whole song at just the right moment.

The eponymous “Song For The Road” contains the best lines in the whole album, (though there isn’t too much competition), “Now I don’t like using words like forever/But I will love you til the end of today/And in the morning when I remember everything that you are/I know I’ll fall for you over again”, a sentiment that gets down to the bone of things without tripping itself up. The rest of the song is lovely, mainly piano and Ford’s voice with slight female backing vocals and horns appearing at the 2mins 30secs mark.

Last but not least, indeed best of, the good songs is “Requiem”. The best showcase on the album for Ford’s songwriting, this track is spectacular. The song builds from plucked guitar and Ford’s voice giving off rhymed verses. Gradual electric guitar and violin accompaniment, drums thud in with reverb. Ford’s bile builds throughout until we get the last verse repeated twice with a massive avalanche of rocking sound, electric guitar freak out and hard strumming. Horn blasts, a repeating piano note that slays, just like the one in “Rebellion (Lies)” by Arcade Fire, and to top it off Ford’s vocals are put through a megaphone. Anti US government lyrics and such are ok but not essential to feel the full force of the song.

So, those are the positives. The negatives are dominated by the constraints Ford’s voice places upon the tone of the album. Yes, it is a dynamic and often powerful thing, but yes it does lend a uniformity to the often melodramatic style of the album, “I’m Alright Now”, “Train”, “St Peter” and “Nobody Tells Me What To Do” all suffer from this. A lesser point of negativity is the incongruity of his Americanized lexicon, with “nickel”, “gas” and the switched definition of “decimate”, all of which sits uneasily next to the thoroughly English sounding voice and music.

Think of David Ford in the same terms as Tom McRae or Liam Frost, a male singer/songwriter/troubadour that plays a similar game to Blunt/Morrison/Nutini/Faulkner but uses different rules. There is a feeling of thought and process behind the former artist’s work, whereas the latter seem to be content to be bland and to regurgitate both lyrics and songwriting.

68%

Links
David Ford [official site] [myspace] [buy it]