Reviewed by Tim Walker

Whoopee! A concept album! Not content on penning plenty of songs on relationships for his first long-player, now Steve Durrant gives us a whole album full of them. With a title like 'Human' one might anticipate early 80's synth-pop as the predominant sound. What we actually get is very reminiscent of Clive Davenport (remember him?) circa 1988, ie, a typical private British CCM tape, complete with hamstrung budget. Sounds like I don't like it? Au contaire. The musicianship is decent enough, founded on Durrant's guitars (nice slide on "Lovers", Steve) and engineer Kevin Brooks' drum programming and bass and embellished by violin and cello (on "The Tango", one of the best tracks) and a mystery harmonica player (uncredited on the inlay). Aside from the odd cringeworthy Iryic ("Lovers", for instance!), this is a good workmanlike product from a homegrown artist well worth supporting. A constructive suggestion for next time, Steve: nice to see the live musicians about, but how about a few more replacing the machines? After all, a band would sound more human...

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