'KISSING. TEARING. AND LOSING' by Hugh McClelland

It’s taken Hugh McClelland a good 2 years of songwriting, gigging and recording to work his way towards this solid debut album, a collection of beautiful and exquisitely haunting songs. A strong album that sounds better each time, with its sneakily hypnotic organ, Rhodes piano and jazz-influenced guitar – full of grand, dark passion and romantic charm.

There’s something curiously yet irresistibly ‘old-fashioned’ about this album with its naggingly catchy songs. Hovering fragilely between jazz and pop (not the stuff for nonchalant toe-tappers though: the style is both confrontational and intelligent) his guitar playing is rooted in ‘songs’ rather than ‘hot licks’ but nonetheless the style is sharp, hard and irresistibly sparky with an occasional hint of 1950s rockabilly flavour. Indeed this haunting blend of styles have intoxicated and entranced many a live audience in recent months.

On superficial acquaintance he’s an accomplished guitarist with a fine voice anchored in the blues. Closer familiarity with, for instance, ‘Again and Again’ reveals a voice that seems to come from a place where deep hurt and profound serenity are forever slugging it out. The summertime picnic whisper of ‘Kissing My Chance Goodbye’ is chillingly convincing and magnificent. Even the downhome blues of ‘Won’t Stop Me Leaving’ has a quality that haunts. For many the blues is an excuse for ridiculously ornate guitar solos. For Hugh McClelland, it is a starting point for an emotional journey, one which we can all share – and of course, it’s never too late to jump aboard.

Stand-out tracks abound. The oddly quirky ‘Chase’ seems almost scornful of sense as words scream past you without apparently any clear connection. He uses language to put across a message or feeling that perhaps language in the conventional sense couldn’t convey. After 3 or 4 playings you realise he is singing about an intense unrequited relationship – and engaging everything within his power to bring about a positive outcome; an extraordinary tension results.

The shivery melodic sense of this collection is brought to a point of quiet magnificence on the Billie Holidayesque ‘Losing My Sleep Over You’, perhaps the album’s finest moment.

The crafted writing and painfully immaculate guitar playing pave the way across an aural journey through this collection of haunting love-lorn mood pieces. The caressing baritone vocals, unobtrusive percussion and flowing acoustic guitar rhythms all add up to a previously unfathomed range and complexity of songwriting which remains deliciously fresh and exciting from start to finish and back again.

The compositional quality is classy all the way through and so is the playing. Jazz or blues purists may well tut, but it’s the innocent emotional intensity of this record that makes it so compelling.