After several years' spluttering, Six By Seven finally came to a halt at the end of 2008, ending more than a decade's worth of slow burn, droning, epically inclined art-rock, capable equally of becalmed blissfulness and all-out guitar pedal carnage. Leader Chris Olley's first attempt at breaking out under his own name, after several experimental side projects, tries the route of most previous travellers away from youthful dissonance, that of the culturedly downbeat acoustic wielding singer-songwriter. Luckily, the initial results remain well clear of what Frank Turner's ended up as trying to make the leap from noisy shouter of the odds to solo troubadour.Chiefly guitar and Mellotron backed, Olley's voice at low level is fairly insubstantial, if a little like Jason Pierce. What's clearer is he knows what he's aiming for, that is to say something beyond just being one man and his confessions recorded in a nondescript room. Opener 'Flying' sets out his stall of wanting to "put the past behind me" as if he's working out where he now is as he goes along, interrupted by a Wurlitzer organ effect. The double tracked vocal and deceptively perky melody of 'Pissing' has more than an echo of Figure 8 Elliott Smith, while 'Rock And Roll' comes on like Spacemen 3 with churning single chord repetition, relentless hi-hat and heavily reverbed vocals, an attempt at lo-fi shoegaze that as extra guitar comes in over the top is about as close as he dare get to the Six By Seven sound.While it gets off to a fine, inventive start, though, it quickly becomes bogged down. Necessarily dropping the lyrically earnest abstractions of his band for something that aims at being more personal, the additional tricks are gradually stripped away to reveal a set of Lennon-ish mid-paced strums that too often feel like a central idea waiting to be filled out into the bigger picture. It's not that Olley stops trying, but at the same time he doesn't seem to know how to recapture the lightning - 'Fear Is A Lie' sees him regain some of his vocal edge and feedback bedding but is blunted by an unsubtle drum machine and lack of focus that sees it cross the five minute mark. It's neither necessarily spare (compare with Toby Hayes' post-Meet Me In St Louis venture Shoes And Socks Off in this regard) or inventively produced, almost content to drift along in well worn lyrical ideas free from musical spark so it ends up too much of a muchness. Given the first third of the album that's a shame, but it does suggest A Streetcar Named Disaster is the necessary brain emptying blood-letting opening the way for something individual and special next time around.

Buy the album on Amazon | [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/throw-your-lovin-arms-around-me/id339079893?uo=4" title="Chris_Olley-A_Streetcar_Named_Disaster_(Album)" text="iTunes"]