3 out of 5

Label: My Pal God

Producer: Brian McTear

He kept the major strength of the previous self-titled album – his lyrics – and did a lot of fixin’ up regarding the weakness of sound that his mostly single guitar and reedy voice could offer, but McTear’s second album still lacks a real defining edge to set it apart in the singer-songwriter world.  However, he turns out some fine tunes on this go that fall back on his production skills and flesh out the compositions instead of vying for the lonely troubadour role.  The album gets off to a strong start with ‘Revenge’ and ‘Rehearsed,’ the former starting in plucky territory like its going to be album one but then getting to its interestingly depressing riff, which builds until the song’s end when McTear drops the title into the lyrics.  He’s not straining his thin range with reverb, instead letting the song do the work, and it makes for a nice punctuation at the beginning, particularly with the snarky subject matter.  Jumping into the perky twaddle of ‘Rehearsed,’ we again find ourselves in better territory, with McTear letting the band in on the gig early.  And track three, ‘Kings,’ is downright aggressive, and our boy swears, so it’s good stuff – your toe is tapping, you can actually remember lines and sing along.  …But these lessons sort of fade out over the remainder of the album, with tracks alternating back to the quieter sound that just doesn’t stir enough about to form a memorable noise.  Still, McTear gets the general balance right of working the music to let his lyrics resonate, and more often than not we get full instrumentation plus a little more variation within and between each track.  So ‘Revenge’ has a much more thought-out setup in general.  It’s a step up, and hints that as his identity as an artist grows more rounded, Bitter Bitter Weeks could put out an album that can actually last from beginning to end.