Below all the shiny production, the 24-year-old North Londoner’s debut lacks
any major invention of the genre, reggae.
By day, Natty was a studio engineer at Sphere Studios in Battersea who
had dreams of making it big.
The debut single, July, has proved popular with significant airtime
on BBC Radio 2 – nothing else matches it. Natty’s influences are wide ranging
from Bob Marley to Marvin Gaye to Neil Young, not that you’d know it from
this collection.
Combining key elements of reggae – Adele/Lily Allen style, he throws in subtle
components of hip hop too. Much of Man Like I is geared towards radio
friendliness, but ultimately unchallenging.
It is however an easy listening album, though most of it is quite forgettable.
It major problem is, there aren’t enough good quality songs. Its best bits are
the jaunty and simple Hey Man, and should he edit a swear word, would
make an excellent next single. The Ska-styled She Loves Me sees him
really hitting his stride, whereas the stripped-back ballad Revolution
works beautifully because of its simplicity.
Bedroom Eyes takes some time to get going but it’s a pretty cool track
with some neat direction changes.
Then there’s the middling songs such a beat-heavy Cold Town and stuttering
and limpless Stoned On You.
Natty’s default button is getting bogged down in dire songs such a wandering
Burn This Place Down which is self indulgent in the extreme. There’s
a knack of making this kind of track work, which a fledgling Natty hasn’t
cracked yet.
On Last Night he’s trying too hard to do a Lily Allen, his chum, and
dull closer Say Bye Bye could have been left on the cutting room floor.
1. July
2. Cold Town
3. Stoned On You
4. Revolution
5. Badman
6. Burn Down This Place
7. Hey Man
8. Bedroom Eyes
9. Last Night
10. Coloured Souls
11. Say Bye Bye
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2008.
