RED TIDE OPAL IN THE LOOSE END WOMB

The people who like Oliver Wilde's second album will really adore it: the sense of diffident playfulness (in titles such as Stomach Full of Cats or Say Yes to Ewans); the very English stateliness of his indie-cum-folk-cum-shoegaze, all done in a determinedly DIY fashion (it's like a stately home made out of papier- mache); the willingness to let his songs unwind rather than rush through them. Indeed, as On This Morning opens the album, you have the suspicion that you're in for something rather special: here's a songwriter who combines melody and mood, and understands that a hook needn't be a huge chorus - it can be the strange, Geiger counter-like percussive clicks on St Elmo's Fire. So why does Red Tide Opal in the Loose End Womb end up feeling a little underwhelming? At 56 minutes, it's just too long: after a while, one starts willing him to be a little less willing to let his songs unwind, to give them an edit, and to find a mood other than slightly woozy. By the end of Red Tide Opal, everything has melded together into one very pleasant but rather undifferentiated mass of pastels. His admirers are right to think Wilde has fabulous talent at his disposal: focus it, and he'll be a world-beater. (www.theguardian.com)