Stephen Fretwell

Have been into the mellow musings of a few singer / songwriters this past week - something about the nights being warmer and lighter in April seems to cry out for a singer and their acoustic guitar to bring a bit of angst tinged romance back into life. Damien Rice is everywhere at the moment, so as an alternative you could do worse than Manchester's Stephen Fretwell. He's been around the smaller venues for almost 3 years and last year took the best of his "8 Songs" debut release, mixed it up with some new tunes and came up with the wonderfully fresh sounding "Magpie". His lyrics are sweet yet bold, making good use of his native accent and the odd inherant profanity. His melodies edge towards gloomy but are always coloured with pop sensibilities. And the overall result gives you the depth of the best folk singers together with the toe-tap of a Simon and Garfunkle number. Basically, listening to him just makes me smile - there are themes and motifs that we all recognise here, presented with equal measures of joy and sadness, and the good thing is, as with most singer / songwriters, he is likely to be very prolific on the back of his successes and a 2nd (3rd?) album cannot be far behind. 8.5/10 Kx