The debut album from Mark W. Georgsson certainly has a unique background to it.
Formerly the bassist known as Mark Thomson from Glaswegian indie-rockers The Velveteen Saints, Thomson took on his new moniker in his new role as a frontman in his own right, and joined forces with Idlewild’s Rod Jones to record with a myriad of different musicians in locations as diverse as Reykjavik, Edinburgh and Mull.
The result is a collection of folk-tinged alt-country songs, heavily-inspired lyrically by the variety of different places the evidently well-travelled singer-songwriter has visited.
It begins on the sombre ‘Break Free’; it’s sparseness complimenting the loneliness Georgsson’s sandpaper-textured vocal sings about.
The title track is also an early highlight – reminiscent of modern-era Bob Dylan, it is a relaxed piano-led, jazzy affair which breezes along pleasantly.
It is on the more uptempo numbers, though, that Faces and Places really shines.
When accompanied perfectly by the backing vocals former Velveteen Saints bandmate (and now of The Bar Dogs) Tino Macdonald on the likes of ‘Oh My Dear Friend’ and ‘Forever Lonely, Forever Blue’, the choruses become instantly more catchier, and make the listener far more engrossed; the latter in particular is by far and away the highlight of the record.
Georgsson sings of past lovers lamenting the loss of one in particular and, again, lamenting the subsequent loneliness that comes from it with a final cry of “I still miss you”.
Faces and Places is the type of record that Ryan Adams doesn’t make anymore, a classic mix of delicate folk ballads, intertwined with fast-paced pedal steel and banjo-led foot-stompers.
The lyrical content often drifts into cliche territory, evident on the country-by-numbers of ‘Rodeo’ in which Georgsson sings of “going from bar to bar/drinking like a rock and roll star”, however on the whole this is a well-rounded debut, charged by a sense of diversity from the experiences and subsequent inspiration Georgsson gained from his travels.
Words: Graham McCusker
