Niall Galvin, AKA Only Real, is a singer-songwriter from west London who combines slurred, half-spoken, half-sung rhymes with a magpie approach to production. As such, comparisons to Jamie T have been inescapable, though Galvin has been keen to play them down. In fairness to Galvin, the debut album Jerk at the End of the Line marks him out as his own distinctly goofy prospect: a fidgety child of the internet intent on marrying ideas that shouldn’t really go together. Over 12 tracks, he touches on everything from Global Hypercolour-flecked pop (lead single Yesterdays) to psychedelic Elephant 6 lo-fi (Can’t Get Happy). Pass the Pain and Cadillac Girl evoke the limpid guitar lines and slacker-lothario vibe of Mac DeMarco, while the brooding Break It Off hints at the bruised balladry of King Krule. That latter track is something of an outlier: for the most part, Jerk at the End of the Line concerns itself with cheerful, picaresque tales of listless youth – all lazy afternoons and late nights. It’s a preoccupation that, by the album’s end, grows a little tired. Which is a shame, because you get the sense that, if his words could match the invention on the rest of the album, he could be a real talent.
