"A leading light on the Cambridge scene, Ilford ex pat Goodwin's 14 track debut album will go down nicely with those appreciate finely written simple acoustic guitar folk music of the early Al Stewart and Nick Drake variety. Written over the course of eight years from 1999 to 2007, you have to conclude that he doesn't have a great deal of luck with women since most of them seem to be about getting the elbow, being churned up over past lovers, and brittle relationships coming apart. Even when, as on the deftly fingerpicked So Finally A Love Song, things seem to be going well he can't help feeling he's trying too hard. And, if shatters of the heart weren't enough to pile on the pessimism and gloom, In Sure And Certain Hope has him singing about a particularly depressing funeral.
Musically the predominant stylistic template is illustrated by such bare boned numbers as Radio Silence, One Off, Edinburgh, Phosphorous Burn and the cello laced Sleep Tonight, all of which seem designed to be played in the disconsolate wee hours at the end of bedsit parties as the ash trays overflow and everyone's feeling introspective.
There are, though, some swerves. The trad tinged shantyish Losing Out To Bullethead flexes muscles with drums, bass and accordion, the chugging rhythm 60 Miles With A Slow Puncture harks to the pop punk folk of formative Billy Bragg, while Borderline's bitter tale of rows and recriminations (All the way home you were screaming "I'm not the one who's in the wrong".) builds to a real storm of distorted guitar noise.
The violin backed Watertight with its air of 60s college folk (Stewart, Atkin, Harper) and looking through the windows on rainy Sunday afternoons is the album high point, but everything here marks Goodwin out as a name deserving to be pulling in the crowds in clubs across the land."