Rat Columns - Babydoll

Album No. Five from Rat Columns and another striking affirmation of the songwriting prowess of David West. Really, this many albums in, as RC or under his own name or any other moniker for that matter, can there be any doubt about the man's credentials? You know a David West song when you hear it, an unnervingly consistent and distinct combination of vulnerability, pithy observation and earworm sensibility. Baby Doll does not deviate from that script, but it does provide some differences in presentation. There are only eight songs here (ten if you get the version with the 7"), and they are longer, denser than usual, more, as they say, rocking. All things being relative, these are some of DW's most overtly Big Indie Rock songs replete with the requisite driving hooks, the kind you might associate more with Homestead-era US guitar music than the 80s NZ/UK indiepop fans may have traditionally connected him with in the past. That DNA has always been hiding somewhere in his music, but what the slight shift does suggest best is an ability to navigate between approaches while being to keep hold of a core identity. It's perhaps, then, West's lyrics that prove his anchor, so adept at walking around the minutiae of human relationships and the romance of domesticity, of the incidental, of the everyday. There's universal truths hidden deep in these lines and once again West has found a compelling way to weave eight instantly engaging narratives. That he's not a bigger name has always been a mystery to me and these songs are robust enough to endure longer than most.