Album Review: The Last Bastion of A Lad

‘Lad’ culture has its roots in Northern England, just like recently transplanted musician Tim Allen.

The Last Bastion of A Lad is the sophomore album from now New Zealand resident Tim Allen, and he’s got some high-calibre Kiwi musicians on board.

The album opens up with the confessional Different Shore with the fitting lyric “my heart beats on a different shore”.

By the end of the repeating last chorus of Get Out Clause, Tim’s northern soul is obvious.

A couple of songs later in and Won’t Let You Win has a wonderful nod to The Beatles with a descending bass line which sounds as though it has been lifted from the fab-four’s playbook.

Loneliness has Tim at the top of his vocal range. It’s a sad sounding acoustic ballad, but it has a brilliant line, “I bought the last ticket, and found out it was fake.”

One Door Closes is next, and it’s the upswing of the down pendulum, following on from Loneliness well, until his spoken word phrase. I don’t think it worked, but that’s just me.

The album’s closer Joan Don’t Go is a great tale of loss, with a playful middle 8 so fat it might as well be a middle 16.

The Last Bastion of A Lad is produced by Ben King and engineered by both King and Nick Abbott, and features some of New Zealand’s finest musicians including Milan Borich (Pluto), Matthias Jordan (Pluto, Nightchoir), plus appearances by Dominic Blaazer, Toni Randle (Eyreton Hall) and Callum Passells.

This album is set to receive critical acclaim, and deservedly so.