The debut solo album by the purest voice in The Zombies is so far from any specific genre that the only way you can place it is by triangulating against other ultra-individualists among his contemporaries. Most obviously the enduringly popular “Misty Roses” suggests the despairing introspection and Debussy-like strings of Nick Drake's finest songs. But before that, “She Loves the Way They Love Her” has already come in with the swagger of Bolan and Bowie at their most insouciantly vaudevillian, and elsewhere you can hear the lascivious yearning of Tim Buckley and Fred Neil at their most grooving, a bit of Steve Winwood’s prog-soul chops in Traffic, and even some of the impossibly deep sorrow of Scott Walker. But those are only reference points: Blunstone is 100% himself, completely comfortable in his own musical skin, and in fact as a singer and writer the equal of any of the above. Yes, that’s quite a claim, but this masterpiece justifies it and more.

– Joe Muggs