Shapes & Shadows Eat Sleep Records**

It took 14 years and six albums with Gomez for Ben Ottewell to take the plunge and release a record without the safety net of his bandmates, but perhaps he should have waited a little longer. There's nothing inherently wrong with Shapes & Shadows, except that it just plods along in a wretchedly forgettable manner, rarely deviating from its demure acoustic-rooted blueprint. Interest is indubitably piqued when Ottewell does shake things up, as heard on the atmospheric fist-pumping chorus of Lightbulbor the bluesy, porch-swinging stomp of Blackbird. Yet a lyric from the latter seems to epitomise the bespectacled singer's tentative solo foray. "You lay down and I stepped right over," he murmurs in his distinctive nasal quiver. Quite. See benottewell.com

Download tracks: Blackbird, Lightbulbs