By Jamie Heron
Rating: ****
Gerry Cinnamon’s people-powered propaganda has seen the Glasgow-born singer-songwriter rise to fame through natural growth and hype. Simplicity is the appeal with Gerry Cinnamon’s music, with he himself admitting to having deep despair for the music industry, with its multi-million-pound marketing and advertising deals to hype up ‘inferior’ artists.
Three years after his release of debut album Erratic Cinematic, Cinnamon’s newest studio project has arrived in the form of The Bonny.
Cinnamon remains unchanged – with the same simplicity of brutally honest and empathetic lyrics accompanied by the indie-folk barebones sound of an acoustic guitar and harmonica.
With his deep Glaswegian accent and powerful acoustic guitar, Cinnamon opens up The Bonny with hit-single Canter, a pace-setting track with the message of support for folks struggling in life, whilst also swiftly moving on with his own.
Dark Days hits with a take-it-as-it-comes attitude – reflecting the attitude of Cinnamon making the best of every bad situation within his life. Although Cinnamon sings to the tune of the ill-fated he looks to the light through his poetic songwriting and melody.
Album-named track The Bonny uses the tingling tune of the harmonica accompanied by lyrics of motivation to ‘build the bonny’ – The Bonny, or bonfire, in this instance used as a deep metaphor for your life itself, and whatever you throw in igniting the flames.
The Outsiders track greets the audience with an acoustic indie-pop rendition with potentially the catchiest tune on the record, as a somber song of heartbreak on the appropriately named Roll the Credits follows.
The Bonny soars in the delicate art of simplicity both lyrically and acoustically, yet the raw emotion and realness of the Scot’s stories don’t fail to deliver.