October 2006

hk magazine - 6th October 2006

Shamus Dark
HK Issue 647
Songs for Suicidal Lovers/ Drum
By Adam White

Shamus Dark Songs for Suicidal Lovers / Drum

No one has any idea who Shamus Dark is, and if any of the extended backstory behind his debut album is true. It’s probably (OK, is) an utter load of crap, but thankfully, this local album lives up to its crafted story (check out www.shamusdark.com because I don’t want to explain it). “Songs for Suicidal Lovers” suggests the bastard lovechild of Frank Sinatra and Morrissey, and that’s by no means wrong. Dark sounds a bit Tom Waits, a bit Lou Reed, a bit Leonard Cohen – bring in the occasional slow guitar lick from local guitar legend Eugene Pao, and you’ve got yourself an album. It’s largely jazz and swing standards, with covers of Sinatra, Holiday and Jobim (with some Joy Division thrown in there for the hell of it), but it’s refreshing to hear different takes on songs so familiar. They’re spacey, melancholic. The beats behind the vocals are jazz-electronica-lite, which tends not to work against the downbeat mood: But when Dark does Fred Astaire’s “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” you can be damn sure that the road in question isn’t so much the open highway and more a dingy alley in Yau Ma Tei. And trust us, you don’t want to know about his baby.

– Adam White

Sounds like: Less “swingin’” and more “swung out. A straight whiskey, please.”