Album review: Cosmo Jarvis - Think Bigger

by Stephen Moore Monday, November 12, 2012
9:07 PM

Multi-talented, mildly maverick young man makes a third stab for music success with this creative, interesting set. Does it work?

At just 22, Jarvis already has nearly 300 songs under his belt, and has just finished directing and producing his first film, The Naughty Room, screened on BBC4.

Think Bigger, his third album, was all recorded above the Spar shop in Paignton, Devon. It reveals that such a prodigious output has yet to drain his well of ideas. If anything, it’s arguably made him plumb for the unconventional lyrical angle, and explore the melodic common ground of country, rock, pop and folk.

So we get chipper wood flutes and acoustic guitar incongruously backing a post-mortem dig at fate in The Girl From My Village, and Sunshine, which takes a Mumford & Sons offcut and throws Guns ‘N Roses guitar and guttural growls at it in the second half.

Both are refreshingly original - as is Lacie, a twee ditty of finger-picked banjo and glockenspiel and arguably the best song going about a computer’s external hard drive (he worries about keeping it awake to ‘burden’ it with his dreams and ideas).

Jarvis’ star is on the rise.

3 stars