Spare a thought for the long-suffering drummers. They are always the butt of awful jokes despite playing a crucial role as the backbone of any band.
Blur percussionist Dave Rowntree is a classic example of a sorely overlooked presence to the point of being almost completely ignored.
It doesn’t help matters that the other members of his band are such huge personalities, especially Damon Albarn and Alex James. In their imperial heyday, I once witnessed these two clown princes of Britpop bouncing out of a limousine and getting marshalled into Lillie’s Bordello in Dublin with hordes of screaming girls in hot pursuit. Predictably, James was brandishing a magnum of Champagne.
Rowntree’s debut solo album features the kind of whip-smart guitar pop you’d associate with Blur, mixed with some social commentary that wouldn’t be too out of place on an album by Damon Albarn’s The Good, The Bad and The Queen, plus some very haunting melancholia.
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Lead single London Bridge is about that landmark – with a twist. Rowntree noticed a lot of unsavoury things happening around its environs, so the song is his effort to confront these demons.
Meanwhile, Devil’s Island is a timely look back at Britain in the 1970s, an economic basket case coming apart at the seams and not a million miles away from today’s uncertain state of play.
Radio Songs contains 10 very pleasant surprises. It goes to show that you should never, ever underestimate the drummer.
