Say the name Mike Gibbins to some younger music fans, and their
\nresponse would most likely be, “Who?”<\/p>\n
Say the name Mike Gibbins to people my age and older, and their
\nresponse would most likely be, “Ah, from Badfinger! ‘Day After
\nDay,’ ‘Baby Blue’.” Gibbins, who refined his chops as a drummer
\nwith the seminal British band until they called it a day in the
\n’70s (and before the tragic suicides of two of its members),
\nGibbins is now striking out on his own with his debut solo effort
\nA Place In Time<\/i>. And while it is admirable that Gibbins
\ntries to set out on his own separate musical road (not mimicking
\nBadfinger’s sound), it shows room for a lot of growth.<\/p>\n
One possible problem is that there are only two key members to
\nthe band: Gibbins provides drums, vocals and keyboards, as well as
\nwriting all the songs and producing the album… oy. It gets to the
\npoint where it makes Rick Warsing look like a slacker for only
\nadding guitars, bass and backing vocals. While the do-it-yourself
\nprinciple is admirable, it does leave room for things to sound
\nhalf-baked.<\/p>\n
Which brings me to the overall sound of the album. While the
\nmusic, for the most part, is good, the sound of the album just
\ndoesn’t have the kick I would have expected from a former member of
\na band that gloried in rich sound. A little more crispness in the
\nmix, and possibly a pinch more treble, and this problem wouldn’t
\nhave even existed.<\/p>\n
As for the songwriting, I seem to sense a lot of anger on the
\npart of Gibbins, especially on the album’s opener “Sue Me”. I have
\nno inside knowledge about any circumstances surrounding Gibbins and
\nformer bandmates, but he’s pissed at someone. Why else would he
\nkeep repeating on this song that someone’s out to “screw me”? Kinda
\nmakes you think…<\/p>\n
It is a good song, however, as are “Overdue,” “Layaway,” “Please
\nPlease” and the title track. Possibly the best track on
\nA Place In Time<\/i> is the instrumental “Warcloud,” a song I
\nwish had lasted far longer. What is admirable about these tracks –
\nand, for that matter, the whole album – is that they don’t sound
\nlike Badfinger material, nor do they seem to be what Gibbins thinks
\nBadfinger would have sounded like today. Instead, they’re all in a
\nnew voice for 1998 – in short, he took the hard road.<\/p>\n
Ah, but this turns out to also be the Achilles’s heel for
\nGibbins. For each decent song on
\nA Place In Time<\/i>, there’s an equally weak track. Songs like
\n“Picture Of You,” “Rocking The Boat” and the forgettable “Bad Boy
\nBlues” show that there’s a lot more work Gibbins has to do on his
\nsongwriting. In its defense, had Gibbins made a Badfinger-clone
\nalbum, it would have failed miserably. At the worst,
\nA Place In Time<\/i> just shows need for improvement.<\/p>\n
Gibbins earned his stripes in the rock world a long time ago;
\nwith
\nA Place In Time<\/i>, he shows he wants to earn them again, this
\ntime on his own. While this is an effort that shows promise, it
\nalso shows that Gibbins isn’t quite there… yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7519],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-39264","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mike-gibbins","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39264"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}