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Album Review: Mr Scruff - Friendly Bacteria

Christopher H James

A clear example of not playing to your strengths.

Mr Scruff
Mr Scruff




News that Andy 'Mr Scruff' Carthy's music was going “sparser, less samples, more bass”, immediately brought to mind preconceptions that he'd be stripping everything that was fun in his music out – a clear example of not playing to your strengths. Enter Denis Jones (he's new to this reviewer too) whose off-kilter, Mancunian vocals and curiosity-arousing lyrics keep the four songs he appears on reassuringly unreal. Unfortunately there's another eight tracks here on which he doesn't appear, which – barring the lounge-acid sorcery of We Are Coming – fail to charm. Sigh.