NOT ENOUGH DRIVE
Passenger, Bush Hall, London
This bijou jewel of a former music hall in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, has had a subtle makeover: to mark the return of Mike Rosenberg, who performs as Passenger: around the foyer hang Instagram-friendly
images of the solo artist looking moody in dramatic Icelandic landscapes.
Ubiquitous 2013 megahit “Let Her Go” – one billion video views so far – has given the Brighton-based singer/songwriter freedom to record where he wishes, though how far has he spread his lyrical horizons? Tonight is the launch party for eighth album Young As The Morning, Old As The Sea, a title that hints at how the 32-year-old finds himself looking back and forwards.
Rosenberg’s distinctive vocal retains its odd mix of smokey weariness and nagging keen, yet new material remains undistinguished: “If You Go” giving us suns and stars that shine, while on “Home” the roads are, of course, winding. He is also debuting a new band – the first time the former busker has played with one for five years – an Antipodean bunch of hirsute Kelly Gang wannabes that previously backed sibling duo Angus and Julia Stone. Despite Rosenberg’s pre-emptive apologies of rough edges, he and the foursome gel nicely, bar the odd loose ending.
On “Somebody’s Love” and old favourite “27” the Aussie backers variously bring dustings of Americana gravitas and skifflesque zip, as well as showing deft touches on the Paul Simon-style lilting rhythms of the current album’s title track and “Anywhere”. They are more diffident on slower ballads that tend to drag as Rosenberg’s anodyne musings come to the fore. Ironically, intensity rises in a mid-set solo segment that features an overwrought take on Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound Of The Silence” and a full-bloodied “I Hate” – slagging off X Factor judges never ages.
Like his mate Ed Sheeran, who took the Brighton-based singer-songwriter on tour to give “Let Her Go” a foothold, Rosenberg has a handful of singalong moments that raise audience morale, though global touring has failed to inspire any more stories as maudlin as “Riding To New York”, about meeting a bloke with terminal cancer. And three albums on from that which spawned his once-ubiquitous calling card, he has yet to capture anything as winning as its wry sense of regret. Rosenberg may have travelled a long way since he penned that paean to loss, but knows it will long overshadow his ongoing career.