The Boy Who Trapped The Sun, AKA Colin Macleod, will start 2010 with the release of his second E.P. ‘Home’, and I think it’s safe to say this singer-songwriter will be making quite an impact with this release.
Colin is a multi instrumentalist, with personality and a good dose of imagination. All this mixed together has resulted in a five track E.P, that for me is one of the most diverse I’ve heard in a long while from the alt-folk genre. This is a guy who’s trapped the sun, and unleashed a whole host of personal experiences and emotions in its place. Title track ‘Home’ engages the listener from the start with its well written acoustic intro, and the later addition of other strings and drums creates a thumping, toe tapping beat. The drums are high in the mix, and the frequent use of cymbals creates atmosphere. A catchy track, which is swiftly followed by ‘In The Dark’. This takes a more childlike approach to the lyrics, and the theme of fear, which as a story, works well. While the melody is simple acoustic guitar chords here, third track, ‘The Fox’ is joined by the piano. Although some of the lyrics weren’t always delivered that clearly on this one, the music was well written, and tinged with a quite charming sadness. Next up was ‘Lying To Get On Your Good Side’ a song that’s heavily message laden, in a slightly old fashioned, bluesy way. Its sense of truth, honesty, and raw emotion kept me interested until almost the end; I say almost, as I wasn’t so keen on the ‘trying too hard to be sinister’ vocal ending. An interesting song though, and one that set up a wistful end to the CD from final track, ‘Change The Clocks’. This track laid heaviest on the folk sounds, out of all of them, and had a really nice lyric to it. One of my favourites on the E.P, along with title track ‘Home’. A strong start, end, and a middle, that was at times, just a little bit too random for my tastes. All in all, an interesting artist though, and one I look forward to hearing more from in the future.
‘Home’ is released by The Boy Who Trapped The Sun on March 1st 2010. For more information please visit www.myspace.com/theboywhotrappedthesun.