A closer look at Martin Luke Brown’s debut album – damn, look a the view!
Overall score: 7.4
Full of emotive lyrics and nostalgic reflections, ‘damn, look at the view!’ is a great debut album, released in 2023. The album covers a lot of ground, sometimes acting as a stream of consciousness, and jumping from sweet love song ‘love is a black hole’ to a slower mental-health-based song ‘alright ?’.
The title track is a great introduction to the album, expressing the feeling of living in the moment. It then leads into ‘grateful’ which has simple, heartfelt emotion that’s well carried by Martin Luke Brown’s voice. ‘Grateful’ also has a moment that I call ‘background noise’ that I really love – where you can hear the artist or others working on the song discussing it.
‘Elsie’ is a real stand-out on the album. There’s a lot of dreaminess in the sound, paired with emotive singing creates a really pretty ballad, a song written about his hometown, Leicester.
And after the struggles displayed in ‘alright ?’, the album enters ‘**it gets better’ and reenters the joy of being alive that earlier songs displayed in the style of an indie pop song. And the album finishes with another nostalgic hit, ‘see you later x’.
I like this album for a lot of reasons. It maintains the same recognisable sound of the album between varying messages, and the lyrics are simple and clear, but not lacking emotion. Whilst I’ve heard indie pop songs and love ballads before, ‘damn, look at the view!’ is distinctively its own.
I would have liked the album to be longer, personally, and I found 8 songs a little short. And there were moments that I found the lyrics repetitive. However, this was a really excellent debut album, and I look forward to seeing what Martin Luke Brown will release next.
