Richard Walters - The Animal (2009)
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NOT ACTUALLY COVER ART!!Myspace
Tracklist
01. Brittle Bones
02. Weather Song
03. All At Sea
04. Crawl Up To My Room
05. We Have Your Head
06. The Animal
07. Red Brick
08. American Stitches
09. True Love Will Find You In The End
10. Spirit Of The Stairway
'The Animal' is produced by David Kosten (Bat For Lashes, Faultline) and Ant Whiting (MIA, Paloma Faith, Zero 7), and was written over a three year period of ecstatic highs and crushing lows for Walters. At the end of this period, he was galvanised to record the album only after he had fallen in love with an American girl and moved with her to Paris from his home town of Oxford.
His gentle falsetto, free from theatrics and histrionics, means that the subjects of his songs come as a surprise. Singing about having a seizure, or the anxiety you feel at the start of an affair, or about domestic abuse from the point of view of the abuser, Walters resolutely refuses to 'rock out': the mood is of quiet despair and unfulfilled desire, of anxiety and dismay, of melancholy and longing.
Twenty-six year old Walters has been performing solo for over a decade, as well as playing in a variety of bands and adding vocals to many prominent musical projects. Most of the album sees Richard playing all the instruments himself, including piano, guitar, bass and keyboards. The strings were provided by Izzi Dunn, who also plays cello for Kanye West.
While one of the album's songs, 'All At Sea', was recently picked for the soundtrack of hit US TV show CSI:Miami, Walters has had a positive early reception in the UK as well, with The Guardian stating 'Finally, a singer-songwriter that we actually enjoy' and Clash calling the album 'dazzlingly beautiful'.
