The press release that came with this EP likened Stylus­boy to “Aqua­lung, Damien Rice, Badly Drawn Boy or maybe Elbow”. Arrog­ant? Maybe, but indie-folk has become more and more pop­u­lar since the release of the film Juno, and had Stylus­boy been on the soundtrack, it wouldn’t have been out-of-place. His recent per­form­ance at the Godiva Fest­ival has brought him some recog­ni­tion, as have his gigs with New­ton Faulkner and The King Blues, amongst oth­ers. Apart from the drums, his entire six track debut EP was recor­ded in his liv­ing room. And actu­ally, listen­ing to the EP, it’s worked out pretty well. It sounds like you’re in his liv­ing room with him, gathered around, listen­ing to him play­ing to a few of his close mates after the pub.

His voice has that “acous­tic singer” qual­ity to it that some voices just have. He plays to his strengths, simple gui­tar work, simple bass, and lets his voice do the talk­ing. The drums are per­haps a little too simple, and sound a bit samey from track to track, but that’s no great cri­ti­cism. Frankly, hav­ing read some other reviews, I think there’s per­haps a tend­ency to launch into pre­ten­tious poetic lan­guage, and I can under­stand why. But that’s not really what this record is about. This record is about simple, heart­felt, solid music. Stylus­boy does a pretty good job of it as well.