Andrew Montgomery -‘Ruled By Dreams.’ (self-released via Bandcamp)

For whatever reason, although it’s Scotland’s third largest city, Aberdeen’s music scene has long suffered in terms of a lack of coverage compared to Glasgow or Edinburgh. One of the city’s most fondly remembered acts, however, are Geneva, and the number one reason Geneva are remembered is the voice of Andrew Montgomery.

It become a rather cliched observation, but the voice of that fine debut album, Further (which still retains a place on my vinyl shelves) and singles like ‘No One Speaks,’ ‘Into The Blue’ and their best song ‘Tranquilizer’ was a voice that reached to the heavens and was truly angelic. Then as now, compaisons could be made to Billy MacKenzie, and Antony Hegarty is not much of a stretch either.

Earlier this year, haviong been missing in action for a long time, he revealed his first solo track ‘After The Storm’ and it was a fantastic return to form. It opens the album here and is followed by two more excellent songs ‘Sorry Someday’ and ‘I Sing The Body Electric.’

So far, so good. The thing is that after this good start, the album then -after several listens – seems to just become rather average. On ‘Making Up For Lost Time’ the voice even becomes rather shrill.

It’s great to have him back and to hear that voice. I hope their will be further albums – but I also hope that the material is worthy of his voice on the next release.

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Ruled By Dreams is out now.

History is full of acts that deserved far greater coverage and sales than they got. While Aberdeen’s Geneva scored four top 40 hits and a top 20 album in the 1990s, and were labelmates of Suede at Nude in London, they should have been far bigger than they were. The main reason they got noticed in the first place was the spellbinding voice of Andrew Montgomery.

It was a Suede connection that has brought the return of Andrew Montgomery to my attention. In 2012 I interviewed Artmagic, the duo which was Sean McGhee and Suede’s guitarist Richard Oakes. Sean has produced the debut solo album from Andrew Montgomery, Ruled By Dreams.

The album will be released on 5th October. It is described as being a mixture of torch songs, yearning modern pop and space-age gospel. It features Richard Oakes, Röyksopp collaborator Kate Havnevik and Jody & Simon from Autoheart.

The album’s opening track “After The Storm”, is the first to do the rounds along with ‘I Sing The Body Electric.’ Listen and be amazed. And believe me, comparisons with the great Antony Hegarty are deserved here. The album can be pre-ordered via his bandcamp.

‘After The Storm’ and ‘I Sing The Body Electric’ can be streamed over at his soundcloud page