Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly, also known as 26 year old Essex boy Sam Duckworth, is set to release his fourth album, Maps, this May and it could prove to be his most upbeat effort yet. Opener ‘The Real McCoy’ is an infectious, bouncy, cheeky indie-pop number that sets the cheerful, energetic tone of the LP and ‘Vital Statistics’ is a similarly playful song, slurred with a jaunty, snazzy repeating bass riff whilst alluding to an addictive crush: ‘you are the same as before, so hard to ignore’. ‘Daylight Robbery’, the album’s lead single, is another fast tempo track softened by a lilting background of ‘woohooing’.
Collaboration seems to be the fashion these days and on ‘The Long And Short Of It All’ Duckworth doesn’t fail to keep up, the track featuring UK hip–hop artist MC Jehst on the verse whilst Duckworth only interjects during the simple, thudding chorus.
Lyrically, Maps is cleverly astute and non-demandingly poetic and this is unquestionably one of the real strong points to the LP. The lyrics are particularly strong on one of the more mellow tracks, ‘Offline Maps’, a philosophical, political number that questions and searches: ‘repressed questions of whose land it really is’, ‘tracing my hand across the map searching for something tangible’ as the protagonist delves for his ‘moral compass’.
Maps doesn’t delve into uncharted territory, but nor does it lead us down a completely dead end. We are left to loiter in a slightly unfulfilling middle zone, feeling neither particularly refreshed nor especially dejected, just disappointed in the fact that the promised map has failed to lead us to any real goldmines. Maps is a solid fourth effort from Duckworth but falls short of really exciting the ear.
2.5 STARS
