Kav Temperley - All Your Devotion (2018)

While Eskimo Joe are currently taking a brief little hiatus, lead singer Kav Temperley has decided to finally step into the spotlight with his long awaited solo project. His debut album ‘All Your Devotion’ is a vulnerable and honest collection of twelve tracks that piece together a sonical mind map of self discovery, new romance and the art of heartbreak. He finds his voice as a solo artist with an intimate and vulnerable approach to alternative rock songs that is quite different to his usual Eskimo Joe approach. Songs like ‘This Is The Love’, ‘Expectations’ and lead single ‘Pollyanna’ come the closest to this old familiar sound with pop polished and pub ready hooks. But the rest of the album is a little different. Album opener ‘Queen Of My Heart’ is one of the records sweetest moments as he delivers a hopeful and beautiful tribute to his partner. The drifting production and swaying strings perfectly introduces the new direction with songs like ‘Devotion’, ‘Please Distract Me’, and ‘Surrender’ also complimenting this stripped back sound. But it’s the minimalist ‘What It’s Worth’ which will become an instant favourite. As the album further delved into this sound, there was a lack of surprise with the production and I was waiting on one more big moment to seal this record together but it never came. But that aside, this is a great debut album for fans of Eskimo Joe and fans of Kav Temperley’s smooth vocals. It may not be a collection of anthemic tracks like ‘Black Fingernails Red Wine’ or ‘From The Sea’ but these are lyrically some of his most personal songs yet.~By Thomas Bleach