Coming through Baltimore [Rams Head Live, 5/31/09] while sandwiched between Amanda Blank and headliner Santigold, Trouble Andrew is burdened with keeping the pace a live of two ladies that know what they are doing, and succeeds rather well at this task most of the time. Whatever he may of lacked, the guy with the air horn wearing the giant skull mask pulled it all together and put a nice bow on it.

A pro-snowboarder turned musician turned in a tight albeit brief supporting set that rolled through a decent chunk of his debut album. A mix of synth-pop-esque meets some post-punk bastard child resonates on the album and is amplified about 10x over in the bands live show.  While at times he comes off as possibly trying to hard, when he is on his game and seemingly comfortable in his own skin he shows the all the characteristics of  developing into force to be reckoned with.

His debut album, crafted while nursing an injury at girlfriends’ Santigold’s apartment, is often reflective of the same problem. Singles like “Chase Money” and Eight Dayz’ cover “What’s So Strange About Me?” show a young man just beginning to come into his own. While there is some gems to be found that make it worthwhile to look into, I strongly suspect a much stronger second album is waiting in the wings. One can only hope today’s label system will give him such a chance.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 7:12 pm and is filed under Live Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.