Dave Williams was once frontman of one of my favourite bands, Derby septet Plans & Apologies. Shortly after that band split in 2008 he released a roughly recorded solo album, ‘The Tragic Tale Of Tito’, under the name Mallard The Wonderdog, which told the story of an ill-fated holiday. After that, things went fairly quiet. Or completely quiet, really. Thankfully, it turns out that Williams’ sharp songwriting skills haven’t fallen by the wayside, he has in fact spent the last two years sneaking into studios during downtime to record his debut album proper, ‘Pops His Clogs’. Listen to that below.
Another concept album, this record deals with slightly bigger ideas, seeing our protagonist being knocked down by a truck and finding himself in heaven; something he struggles to cope with as an atheist. The idea came to Williams after reading ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins. “I wanted to write something that poked gentle fun at all the aspects of [Dawkins'] argument, [which] essentially uses a combination of logic and bullying to convert people to atheism”, he told Hatch’d Magazine.
Add to that a healthy influence from Japanese surrealist author Haruki Murikami and you’ve got an effortlessly charming album, full of beautifully crafted songs all topped off with Williams’ marvellous way with words. And you can get the whole thing on Bandcamp for just a quid (or £500 per track – “The idea being, just pay a pound and listen to the whole thing, you ADD bastards”). This and the release of Plans & Apologies long-promised third album, ‘Soz’, back in June have improved this year considerably.
Sections: by Andy Malt - CMU Approved | Tags: Dave Williams, Mallard The Wonderdog
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