R2 Rock & Reel Album Reviews David Woodcock Debut

Published on 30th September 2014 (UK)

Media title : R2 Rock & Reel

Author : Gerry Hanson

Southend songwriter David Woodcock inhabits a genre destined to be described as ‘quintessentially English’. His pub-piano-led songs are smalltown vignettes populated with wry observations and tragicomic saloon-bar emotions. It’s well executed, set against a musical backdrop of Modish pop, immediately marking him out as the grubby-kneed nephew of Madness and Blur. Great-uncle Ray Davies’s Postal Order, however, has yet to arrive.

The velvet-curtain glam of the carefully crafted epic ‘The Adventures Of You And Me’ and ‘End Of An Era’ are particular highlights, recalling Ian Hunter and Bowie celebrating Anthony Newley. Proper respect, too, for closer ‘I Forgot To Miss You’, invoking the spirit of legendary Essex boozer, the Railway Hotel.