This isn’t really easy to understand. This 26-year-old schmuck from California comes along and records a terrifically strong album and spreads via his twitter-account that no one should please mistake him for a musician. Well, okay, I guess we’re all used to mannerisms. Still, »Time’s All Gone« definitely consists of music and it is music which would’ve been perfectly suitable for the 1950s. Waterhouse recorded the whole LP analogically and mostly live in the studio. And this is exactly why the whole 35 minutes seem covered with a black-and-white-filter. Waterhouse’s voice is almost cracking in »(If) You Want Trouble«, the brass players circle above the rhythm and it seems a little as if we heard the vinyl sizzle through some of the notes. You could say that all of this has been here before, sure, but that doesn’t make »Time’s All Gone« any less interesting – to the contrary. For a very long time, no one has mastered R&B so beautifully as Nick Waterhouse does. »I Can Only Give You Everything« and »Don’t You Forget« have incredible, persuasive rhythms and the finale of the title track releases all the energy that is trapped in the music and in this guy in his suit and horn-rims. You can hardly find such passion and feeling for a song anymore. And this is why this album goes with this year better than any other.
Daniel Ögren
Pine
Playground