Lightspeed Champion, AKA Devonte Hynes, was a late draft to the terribly named post punk-ish outfit Test Icicles. Now gone all solo and grown up, under a slightly better name but still with Domino’s considerable weight behind him, the 'punk' has been replaced by some alt.country.lite and this is his debut long-player.Falling Off the Lavender Bridge is as hard to like as it is to dislike; there's enough slick production (courtesy of the incredibly hip Mike Mogis, who's in Bright Eyes and everything) and fancy guest appearances (Emmy the Great, some Tilly and the Wallers etc) for an entire issue of NME, but unfortunately about the same level of substance. It ain't rubbish by any stretch, but neither is it the sum of its rather over-hyped parts.If ever an album screamed "six out of ten", then this is it. There are oodles of strings/keys/horns/godknowswhatelse and lashings of slide guitar, but everything's so slick the tunes fail to gain any traction. When you strip these songs down you're left with some very ordinary guitar work overlaid with immediately forgettable sixth form lyrics. Hence, I expect, the whitewash of production. That said, I'm no sixth-former - that particular market may well lap this up, and good luck to them.Lightspeed Champion arrives in a singer-songwriter scene currently awash with talent, and its hard to see where he fits in, except perhaps as a trainee and all-around likeable chap. The music veers between playful and morose bedroom angst without ever capturing the gay abandon of the former or the anguish of the latter. I find myself drifting off about a minute into each song, without ever being offended enough to skip a track - perfect radio fodder; except of course it's riddled with an over abundance of alcohol references and pointless swearing that just adds to the student feel of the songwriting. There's definitely an audience for Lightspeed Champion, and with some talented folk around him he's only going to grow as a songwriter. But, right now, the transition from young punker to accomplished artist is far from over and no amount of polish can hide that. 62%mp3:> Lightspeed Champion: 'Everyone I Know Is Listening To Crunk'Links Lightspeed Champion [official site] [myspace] [buy it]