Jaymz Lee Shaw - Older

Hear The Track Here

Jaymz Lee Shaw (or Smalllife depending on where you are standing I guess) is a new name to me from MP3 Unsigned singing about my favourite occupation - getting older. Mind you, his major preoccupation is blaming all and sundry for the fact that he has to vocalise on this track on alien abductions, so I think he probably has the 'this is madness' edge there. He carries that mopy 'why me?' tone into the track with him and - despite the usual teenage whyme? whine - makes a surprisingly good thing of the whole deal. I admit that it took me more than a couple of plays to snuggle up to this baby but it won out in the end, although not unscathed.

The intro on this track seems a lot longer than the one minute, twenty that it actually is, definitely a case of chop chop here I think. Older is essentially an acoustic rock tune, sweetened by the addition of beautiful violin line and a sparse bass line, overlaid with the aforementioned vocals. To be truthful I have heard vocals a lot, lot worse than this so do yourself a favour Jaymz, just practice a bit more and it'll get a lot better. Not that anyone listening to this track would think that you'd need practice, they would think that it was a decent even track with a slightly odd vocal that kinda stops as if it were out of breath...

The thing that won me over, after the overlong intro and the slightly repetitive chord progression, is that this is a song, and should be judged by that criteria. As a song, it's surprisingly effective reminding me, at least, of the early vocal work of Pink Floyd (in their quieter, 'the sky is falling on our heads' moments). Despite all his protestations to the contrary Jaymz IS a singer - at least by my sliderule. Anyone who can pull off a tune effectively and emotionally (even if it is all a bit 'poor me') and have it connect with the listener IS a singer. Cut a minute off the top and tail of this quite long track and bring it in around the three minute mark and this would count as a very decent track indeed - and certainly for the genre it lives in.