Grant Campbell - Expecting Great Things

Grant Campbell's intimate third album pushes his haunting vocal to the fore

Album Review by Joe Barton | 24 Apr 2009
  • Grant Campbell, Expecting Great Things (Crooked Mouth Records)
Album title: Expecting Great Things
Artist: Grant Campbell
Label: Crooked Mouth Records
Release date: 6 Apr

Despite being recorded one summer's afternoon, Expecting Great Things sounds more suited to a winter night, where Grant Campbell’s songwriting can warm the soul to fuller effect. With simple yet clear production values, the album is panned so that Campbell’s ghostly baritone is in one speaker and his guitar in the other, The listener, meanwhile, is placed intimately between the two, making it feel as if every line of the album’s lyrics are being whispered into their ear. The songs themselves are uncluttered, allowing the imagery of Campbell’s lyrics - such as Open For Change’s ‘smile without a purpose/clown without a circus’ - to come into sharp focus and providing time for reflection on couplets like ‘we suffer funny shit/for that promise of eternal bliss’. Fans of Damien Rice will no doubt love this, but unlike Rice’s wavering tenor, Campbell’s deeper voice anchors these songs down, making it a more subdued – but equally as poignant - listening experience.