Album Review: Calamateur, Each Dirty Letter

3rd Sep 2010

Reviewed by: Alan Aston-Smith

Skiddle rating: 3/5

'Calamateur' is the performing name of Inverness singer-songwriter Andrew Howie. Written on the back cover of this, his fourth album, amongst the tracklistings, are the words ‘Andrew’s album, very sweet, very strong.’ This is an accurate summation, but it doesn’t necessarily fulfil its intended, self-promotional, function. Each Dirty Letter is very much ‘Andrew’s album’; many of the songs are extremely frank, or even confessional, and throughout there is the sense that this is a highly personal record. ‘Very sweet’ and ‘very strong’ are both applicable in places, but the album is neither consistently sweet nor consistently strong, and its occasionally excessive sweetness is in fact a weakness.

This is most apparent in the second track, ‘Banoffee’, which is likely to induce the same sickly feeling as too large a slice of the eponymous pie. The melody could easily have been recycled from a nineties boy band cast-off, while the lyrics are both saccharine and trite. Howie sings that he wants to ‘transcend every dumb cliché’, and then breaks into a chorus that is almost entirely comprised of dumb clichés. After the auspicious start of intimate-sounding opener ‘Change This World’, this is something of a disappointment.

But Calamateur redeems himself elsewhere on the album. The next track, ‘Retreat’ makes excellent use of the guest vocals of Jo Mango, while ‘Testimony’ sees a successful increase in pace and a fuller, less acoustic sound. However, on the strongest track, ‘A Bad Friend’, Howie is accompanied only by his acoustic guitar. This is also the album’s most confessional song: Howie apologises for all the times that he has been a bad friend, such as when ‘I didn’t send you any invites to the parties that I held’ and when ‘I called you the C-word directly to your face.’ It is the more personal moments like this that make Each Dirty Letter an engaging album.

Although it is hampered by some misjudgements, this is for the most part a fine example of confessional songwriting.