Eden James - These Streets

Eden James has a great future in front of him writing songs for other people in their accepted styles. This isn’t to say that his own work lacks something when he sings it himself (his voice is fine), just that he manages to artfully bring to mind the likes of Springsteen, Petty, Bowie and Meatloaf (and a few others from the last 50 years of solo male singers) so often throughout the eight tracks of this album that you tend to lose sight of the man behind the music along the way. For a while then that makes for a good parlour game of  “spot the influence” but ultimately gets a bit overpowering.

With more bombastic production and a slightly angrier delivery then, the album’s title track would fare very well being belted out in a stadium by The Boss, whilst ‘Got The Love’ brings to mind the songs of the Let’s Dance-era Bowie. “I gave it my best but my best wasn’t good enough” is, unsurprisingly, the rousing chorus from ‘Gave It My Best’ and I defy anyone not to imagine Meatloaf bellowing that out atop his Harley as he’s propelled out of a trapdoor (or whatever he does on stage these days). The piano and backing vocals are pure Steinmann too. Penultimate song ‘Mistakes’ mines the ballad end of the big man’s oeuvre and it really needs the big sound treatment to put the desired positive sheen on the confession of failing to live up to expectations.

‘Mixed Emotions’ and ‘Going Down’ are the weakest two tracks on offer here, simply because the likes of Jesse Malin are investing such tunes with more believable emotional content, although lyrically and arrangement-wise there’s little to cause complaint. A definite “could do better” then as, while it’s thankfully not James Blunt, there’s more emotional depths to be plumbed before the singer is fully a match for his own songs.