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Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly

Maps

Written by: PP on 10/10/2012 05:33:17

Back when I was a university sophomore, Sam Duckworth was starting to make a name for himself with his one man, one acoustic guitar, and one laptop approach to singer-songwriter / indie rock under the moniker of Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. I remember seeing him in a sweaty Brixton venue in London supporting Fastlane where he seemed a little out-of-place with his laptop on stage giving him the beats to his acoustic guitar at a pop punk show. That was back in 2005, and much has changed since then. He has released four albums - three on a major label - where the fourth one is "Maps" that surfaced earlier this year. He's also no longer just himself in the band, but rather has done a Frank Turner and hired a full band to support his vocal/guitar experimentation. But that was a while ago and some of you undoubtedly know that, yet its a necessary back story to support this review since I haven't paid attention to the guy for four albums now.

"Maps", then, is a pop-flavored indie rock album with hints of singer-songwriter buried within its cheerful experimentation of the genre. There's a healthy amount of garage rock influence, as well as traditional singer-songwriter, and even straight up pop in places ("Call Of Duty", for instance, has a Minus The Bear type of sexy pop vibe to it), but primarily he's still writing songs with his acoustic guitar even though you can tell there's a full band backing him at times. I can't tell where he's at his best, because "Snap" is a decently enjoyable track despite its minimalist singer-songwriter approach, but at the same time the lo-fi The Thermals-esque garage of "Daylight Robbery" is really catchy as well. You'll even find tracks that end up halfway in hip-hop like "The Long And Short Of It All", which should fall right at home with any fan of The Streets.

The issue, however, is that while there's a bunch of decent songs on "Maps", it never really strikes out as something special. These are just ordinary indie/garage/pop/folk songs written from an experimental viewpoint, nothing more, nothing less. I'm guessing fans will be happy with this, but it does little to convince new listeners to jump on the Get Cape hype boat, which I suppose left ashore three or four albums ago in the first place.

Download: Call of Duty, Daylight Robbery, Offline Maps
For the fans of: The Thermals, Frank Turner
Listen: Facebook

Release date 07.05.2012
Cooking Vinyl