As a former choirboy turned classical music student whose father was a member of a punk band, Marlon Williams was never going to make a conventional country-rock LP. Sure enough, the New Zealander’s solo debut is part Jeff Buckley, part early rock’n’roll, as underlined by his cover of a Billy Fury song (I’m Lost Without You). Williams’s voice is shown off best on another cover, the folk standard When I Was a Young Girl, every second of which rings true. And while he doesn’t know quite where his strengths lie yet, tracks such as Strange Things and Lonely Side of Her boast a ghostly, weathered quality that compensates for the odd hillbilly dud.
