DANIEL FRANCIS DOYLE – We Bet Our Money On You

One of the most beautiful things about the World Wide Web is the fact that pretty much anyone can self-publish their art and expose it to the masses. Be it audio or visual, the internet allows artists to connect to a world which would have been unattainable in the past.

In the case of Daniel Francis Doyle’s new album, We Bet Our Money On You, it’s a double-edged sword. With Doyle on vocals and drums, the tracks on this album play like an out of tune music box. The majority of the songs featured here end up sounding repetitive, with oddly timed drumming set to a marching beat and random guitar plucking that verge on the boarder of being annoying. There seems to be an attempt by Doyle to style his vocals to that of David Byrne from Talking Heads, but it falls flat from the start. Softer tracks like “Your Baby Is Speaking” actually give some much needed heart and body to this mess of an album, but it doesn’t redeem it enough to be worthy of a recommendation.

By the seventh track entitled “How Can You Work?” I was asking the same thing of my ears, as the same repetitive musical formula was being played once again. Honestly, I’m only one person, and understandably one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but I just don’t see the attraction here.

(We Shot JR Records, PO Box 720291, Dallas, TX 73372)