This came out in 2002 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
“Everybody’s laughing,” says Alex Lloyd. Everybody but him, that is.
This Australian singer-songwriter is anything but a happy-go-lucky songster — he’s more of a mope-pop troubadour along the lines of David Gray, what with all those fragile vocals and downtempo tunes and acoustic guitars and lyrics like, “When the rain, it comes, it never wants to stop.” Lucky for him the sound of his sophomore disc Watching Angels Mend doesn’t end there. It also includes a hefty dose of Beatles-inspired melodicism and superbly executed pop songcraft, along with touches of Travis for the trendies, some Radiohead electronics for the hipsters and even a whiff of Dave Matthews’ patchouli-pop for the granola crowd. Put ’em all together and you’ve got a darkly rich pop gem that could send this Aussie lad laughing all the way to the bank.
