Vangoffey, Take Your Jacket Off & Get Into It - album review: Cheeky Britpop smarts with bags of zing and raised-eyebrow irony

Download: Race Of Life; Sucker

Danny Goffey brings to his solo work as Vangoffey the same skillset employed in his former position with Supergrass: cheeky Britpop smarts with bags of zing and raised-eyebrow irony.

But there’s one significant exception: Goffey has to sing, and it’s not his forte.

The album opens in suitably droll manner with “Race Of Life”, a sperm’s story of how he “pulled that one out of the bag” (ahem) and beat his wriggly chums to the egg.

Delivered as a mockney rap over a pounding groove, it works well enough; but the speak-sing approach he adopts thereafter is less effective, and the disconnect between the energy of the backings and the drab, throwaway vocals becomes harder to overlook.

He’s clearly aiming for the demotic charm of The Kinks, particularly on the caricature “Alfie Loves The Birds”, but he lacks Ray Davies’ wit and melodic gift. This is glaringly apparent on the loudmouth putdown “You You You”, which is brittle.