KIEFER SUTHERLAND
Bloor Street (Cooking Vinyl)
It’s easy to be sceptical when a Hollywood superstar turns to music but if Bloor Street is anything to go by, Kiefer Sutherland can really sing. His voice has just the right amount of smoky barroom gruffness to suit the country genre. The title track – also the leadoff single – is a nice song with nice lyrics; in fact, the whole album is… nice. Sutherland sings about being in love, failing out of love, separation and loss but without any real emotion and even County Jail Gate, a song about doing time for car theft, has no real edge to it.
There isn’t a lot of variation on Bloor Street: the tone is set at the start and it’s rather like listening to one long track. These self-penned songs from Sutherland are peppered with cringeworthy rhymes, to boot, and you have to wonder how autobiographical they really are. The final track on Bloor Street, Down The Line, a duet with an unknown female singer, adds some much-needed interest.
words LYNDA NASH