★★★½

The key to Kim Salmon’sMy Scriptis held within the first word of its refreshingly simple title.

This isn’t a universal story, or one painted with broad strokes: this is a Walt Whitman-esque celebration of self, an implosion sucking itself back to a single point of ignition.

Indeed, the album works best when it keeps things intimate; when the dimensions of the stage shrink and Salmon is left alone and unguarded. Whether he is encouraging friends to “eulogise[and] Facebook block me” on immensely lovable opener ‘Pathologise Me’, or discussing the intricacies of treatment on ‘Making Me Better’, he reveals his true skills as a songwriter when he turns his gaze upon himself.

The problems show themselves when Salmon’s scope begins to broaden even a touch, and moments of searing honesty are traded in for clichés. ‘Fucking Shit Up’ and the McCartney/Malkmus mash-up of ‘Animal Man’ seem like artistic lies, as though Salmon feels compelled to flinch away from the truth and hide behind the rockstar image he has cultivated over the years.

Nonetheless, taken as a whole, My Script is a flawed yet engrossing self-portrait; a collection of broken bottles and empty blister packets of pills arranged in the shape of a man.

Kim Salmon’sMy Scriptis out now independently through Bandcamp.

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