Cam's Even Song - Pick Me Up

Hear The Track Here

Cameron Bastedo (aka Cam's Even Song aka Soundclick Song Machine and all points south) has been a busy, busy boy this year. There again, he's been a busy boy ever since I first became aware of him a good many years ago. The first track I ever reviewed of his - The Home Of The Lord (June 2004) - showed what a good guitarist and songwriter this Canadian based guy was. It wasn't however the track that really got me focused on his work, that came later with Scream (version 2), Red Rock and a slew of other tracks that rapidly found room on my hard drive and tracks that I have kept from that year. This year, as many of you know, Cam has excelled himself and I have kept almost every track this year and that says a lot.

Uh oh. What's this, the velvet glove and then the cosh?? Well, not really but...

As the old saying goes, you are only as good as your last track, and when your last tracks has raised the bar some then you may encounter a problem or two. Not that there is anything wrong with Pick Me Up whatsoever, as always it's a classic Cam peice, exactly what you would expect from such a seasoned and consistent musician. You may just have caught me muttering something about being too consistent but pay that no mind, that's just my green eyed monkey peeking out. Making music the old fashioned way (ie actually playing instruments) is enormously difficult to pin down in this electronic age and yet artists of the calibre and breadth of this guy keep on doing it, almost flawlessly time after time.

Pick Me Up is, according to Cam, a song about growing older which is always a perrenial favourite innit? It's also extremely tuneful; mainly coming from a classic fretless bass riff that draws your attention immediately. As always, the song and its structure are familiar trademarks of this artist as is the distinctive, Beatle-ish vocal delivery. It isn't enough though IMO to get it over the slight flaws in this track, some of the sound levels are decidely wobbly and I don't think the song is as cogent as many he has released this year. Still, no doubt there will still be plenty of listeners who will like it and not even notice the admittedly smalll flaws I have mentioned, and with the track record he has this year, Cam has little to worry about anyway. So, a bit of an album filler if you know what I mean. A good Cam track yes, but this has been a year of great ones and it may well suffer in comparison.

Recommended nonetheless.