Badly Drawn Boy doesn’t write songs, he writes albums. His debut album, 2001’s The Hour of Bewilderbeast, won Britain’s prestigious Mercury Prize before finally being released in the United States. Bewilderbeast showed Badly Drawn Boy’s knack for making songs lush and sonically complex, while at the same time maintaining simple structure that could easily be produced on a single acoustic guitar. This allowed the album to move easily enough from one track to another, unbeknownst to the listener.
His follow-up album, Have you Fed the Fish?, proves that Badly Drawn Boy is no one-album wonder. Co-produced by Tom Rothrock, who also co-produced BDB’s score to the Hugh Grant film About a Boy, this album shows his increasing sophistication and arrangement talents. In the album’s title track, soaring electric guitars, along with layers of synths, flutter around the driving piano melody, which is unbelievably simple and beautiful.
There are times when this kind of backing is used all too appropriately to boost songs. Strings and a horn section flow in and out of the otherwise acoustic “How?” with precise timing to match the high and low points of the song. There is also the upbeat “Using Our Feet,” which alternates between lo-fi piano to full-band honky tonk with the greatest of ease.
The turning point of the album comes with the seventh song, “You Were Right.” It deals with BDB’s love for his wife and his desire for a simple life, which is the general theme for the entire album. Unlike Bewilderbeast, which seems to have esoteric and naturalistic themes, this stays more grounded in his present state of being. Thus, the songs are more grounded in reality and more accessible.
From this point in the album, the tempo shifts to slower, more nocturnal songs. The funky “The Further” has definite leanings toward late Marvin Gaye, specifically “Sexual Healing.” The final track “Bedside Story” is darker than any other song on the album, with strings and guitars soaring over the melody like jet bombers of the apocalypse.
The true end of the album, however, comes with the penultimate track, “What is it Now?” Thematically, it is reminiscent of “You Were Right,” with the same driving electric guitar and rhythm section. This throwback serves as a wrap-up to the underlying themes of marital bliss and joy of the simple things that resurface throughout the album.
This is not simply an album, this is an experience similar to reading a great book. By the end, the characters are well-known and acquire the listener’s emotional attachment, just like the characters in any great book are unforgettable and permeate our lives. And like a good book, this album is at its best when it is consumed in one sitting, while everything is fresh in the listener’s mind.
