The Last Dinosaur – The Nothing – Album Review by Killian Laher

The Last Dinosaur is the recording name of Jamie Cameron, and he has just released his second album.  The album is something of an understated beauty.  Atoms opens with a simple, unadorned acoustic strum, over which we get Cameron’s whispered vocals.  It’s gradually joined by some strings and a little banjo and the overall effect comes off like Mark Linkous singing over classic Red House Painters.  A rolling guitar introduces the rather more optimistic-sounding Grow, which builds on the previous track but in a more uplifting way, with more prominent strings.  The National Stage consists of a keyboard whine with strings which acts as something of a palette cleanser, before the soaring All My Faith, which is filled with oohing and aahing backing vocals and a simple but real chorus that might make this the most accessible track here.

More pleasant banjo introduces the Sufjan Stevens-like We’ll Greet Death which bobs along nicely until a somewhat overplayed saxophone enters the mix towards the end, threatening to derail the song, but it’s a rare misstep.  We get atmospheric pieces such as the piano-led The Body Collapse and On Water, which work well to maintain the mood.  But mostly the album consists of blushingly melancholic songs like I Couldn’t Wait and Wings, which feature plenty of different instruments but none of them dominate too much.  Towards the end, penultimate The Sea is a little more dramatic with its string-laden crescendos and echoey electric guitars.

It’s a kind of late summer, staring out the window yearning type of album, and a bit of a low key classic.

Available on Bandcamp.

Track List:

1. Atoms
2. Grow
3. The National Stage
4. All My Faith
5. We’ll Greet Death
6. The Body Collapse
7. I Couldn’t Wait
8. Wings
9. On Water
10. The Sea
11. Goodnight

Atoms