Simon Breed
Finish My Book

Lured by an admittedly unsubstantiated claim that he comes ‘feted’ by the Bad Seeds, I had high hopes for Simon Breed.

Sadly ‘Finish My Book’ isn’t all that and a brooding bag of biblical potato chips. It’s about escaping the rat race via the joys of a good book, and the anxiety experienced when our protagonist realises said novel will at some point have to end.

All of which makes the song’s melodramatic delivery seem faintly ridiculous, as Breed wails portentously "what they don’t tell you is time passes!". Er no, Simon, that’s sort of a given.

Breed makes his vocal entry low and expansive before suddenly shifting up an octave to place us firmly in Echo & The Bunnymen territory, or to be more precise, ‘Killing Moon’ territory. Unfortunately there’s also an unsavoury whiff of Legs Akimbo-style amateur dramatics to the proceedings, compounded by a truly De Burghian middle eight which speaks of "sudden stabbings" and, bizarrely, "the stench of children".

To be fair this is a serviceable tune and there’s enough to suggest Breed has better things in him, but for now you’d do well to avoid this overwrought slice of Big Music-style emoting.