Smith & Burrows - Funny Looking Angels

I guess I should hate this. Smith & Burrows is the imaginative moniker of Tom Smith (from Editors) and Andy Burrows (formerly of Razorlight). I don’t like Editors and I don’t like Razorlight. The lead single from this record, When The Thames Froze, is incredibly annoying, featuring clunky politics and a nauseating video which sees the duo battle it out for the prize of “most dubious facial hair”. So I was expecting the rest of the album to be similarly awful. But you know what; it’s not half bad.

Opening with an underwhelming cover of In The Bleak Midwinter, and segueing into the aforementioned dirge When The Thames Froze, things at first don’t look promising. But next track As The Snowflakes Fall, which sees Burrows take lead vocals, is a much more interesting affair, and if I was being generous I’d go as far as to say it sounds like “Figure 8” period Elliot Smith. And believe me, when I started listening to this record I really didn’t think I’d be comparing Razorlight’s ex-drummer to Elliot Smith. So that’s something.

Indeed, it’s the songs where Burrows takes the lead which work the best; his warm crooning is relatively unremarkable but at least it’s better than Smith’s laboured Chris Martin impression (To clarify, I really don’t like Editors). The title track is devilishly catchy, all handclaps and horns, while the cover of Yazoo’s Only You is surprisingly effective. And despite my dislike of Smith, the finger-picked ballad Wonderful Life is pretty good, while Agnes Obel’s turn on closer The Christmas Song, with her voice playing against Smith’s, ends the album on a relative high.

The rest ranges from the mediocre to the terrible, but there’s a decent EP hidden within this album, and Burrows’ songs here, when heard alongside his material as I Am Arrows, suggest that with a bit of development his work could begin to make amends for his part in Razorlight. As it is, if the best I can say of this record is “I didn’t hate it” then that in itself is quite an achievement. The fact that there’s a couple of genuinely good songs in here is a Christmas miracle.

Jed. x