Album – Alumni – Julius

Posted by admin on September 19th, 2007

Having just released the review for General Fuzz, I was given a mental reminder, that I had the new Julius album lying on my hard disk waiting for review. Now why would General Fuzz remind me of Julius. Well Julius is another one of those daft buggers, releasing his music to the world for free. Yes you can pick up a physical copy for a minimal price, which barely covers the cost of media, but essentially you are getting the musical equivalent of free beer.

I reviewed Julius’ Yern EP, back in November and was totally blown away. So barely 7 months later, here I am with another chunk of great music. It’s funny, I was checking out Julius’ MySpace page, when I noticed his new release, Alumni. Not 10 minutes after doing this, I get an email from the man himself, offering me a copy for review. Now that’s what I call coincidence.

This 8 track album, has everything I’ve come to love about Julius, simplicity and a haunting honesty. It’s very much acoustic, with no frills or gimmicks, and all the better for it.

The album opens up with “Dust PT II”, a pretty upbeat track, well for Julius anyway. There’s something very quintessentially British about this album, almost eccentric, but it just a sheer delight to listen to. “Sweet” bares comparison to Jeff Buckley, but not so much the music itself, but the haunting aura surrounding it, and indeed the majority of the album.

“World in You” is an odd little track. It’s a tad under 2 minutes, but something about it, just seems out of place. I think some of this stems from the vocals, which sound like someone, trying to imitate an accent, with very pronounced annunciation. “Sideways”, has an almost Tudor, sound, not too far removed, from how you imagine a court minstrel to sound. The following track “Anne-Marie Says” has an almost 60’s folk feel to it, and wouldn’t seem too out of place as a track on a period movie.

Rounding off the album is “Save the Day”. While there isn’t a track on here that will blow you away, it’s not really that kind of album. Very similar to the William Fitzsimmons album reviewed recently, this is an album, that you choose to put on at specific times, usually to unwind from the great rat race. At that task, it succeeds very well.

Conclusion : Another fantastic release and a real joy to listen to when you just need to escape yourself for a while.

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