Chimpomatic

Judging by the longest losing streak in betting history Grandma Muxloe’s tealeaf reading powers of prediction seemed to have passed me by. Future forecasts are not my strong point. But I can already guess with confidence your first two thoughts on listening to Puddle City Racing Lights, the debut album from Windmill.

First up will be the question ‘haven’t we already heard this before?’ You might wonder if this is perhaps an album mislaid by Mercury Rev at some time after Deserters Songs but just before they lost themselves in a haze of pomposity. Or maybe you’ll think to yourself ‘cunning, this boy Windmill stumbled on a stash of out-takes from Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush sessions and has added some 21st century beats to pass them off as his own’.

Secondly you’ll have to make a decision on Windmill’s voice. It’s a transatlantic lilt, failing to reflect his Welsh origins, which is delivered in a pitch which some might laud as ‘soaring’ but others might deride as ‘grating’. Its not one for the tabloids to seize on in the manner with which they ripped apart Joss Stone for dropping Devon in favour of LA but it might strike you Indie kids as being an indicator of a possible lack of veracity in Windmill’s credentials.

On both counts my advice would be to ‘get over it’. Sure, Windmill has worked with a template laid out before but give him a chance because he’s added splashes of new colour to bring it all to life once more. It's like Warhol screen-printing over familiar images – they might be the same but they are also so very different. As to the voice, it may be an acquired taste but it shouldn’t be enough to put you off. If it does then you lose out in the way that you would if you turned down Sienna Miller or Daniel Craig (depending on your preference - Muxloe is an equally opportunities reviewer after all) on the basis that you don’t usually go for blondes - some people will just never be satisfied.

Rather than set his sails to capture breezes blowing down from Liverpool and Manchester or gusts up from Bristol and London, Windmill has unashamedly located his mill facing westward to America. But that’s no bad thing as the winds whipped up across the Pond have provided more than enough energy and ideas to power a dynamo of a debut album. The key to his appeal is that, admirably backed by The Earlies live band, he has created sound-scapes so vivid that they suck you right in. It’s not so much like watching a film but more like slipping on a virtual reality headset. By the time the album finished I needed to be reminded that I wasn’t actual an asthmatic Model’s Agent caught up in a Tokyo car crash. Big things, and even Mercury Prizes, have been predicted for Windmill. I’ve checked the tea leaves but have not the faintest clue what they foretell so will not be joining some of these wilder soothsayers. All I will say is that the boy Windmill has made a cracking start and deserves whatever plaudits come his way.