Having seen Tim Berry play locally on a number of occasions, my opinion of him as a performer is this: a fantastic songwriter, intriguing vocalist (great if you like moany, whining ‘woe-is-me’ tones), adequate guitarist who is prone to more than his fair share of errors when performing live. His songs have captivated me – I’ve always likened him to ’67-era Bowie – the darker, less jolly stuff from his eponymously-titled debut album.

Obviously, any fuck-ups that litter his live performances would not be an issue on this, Who Cares?, his debut album by Oh Dreamland. So, with those out of the way it’s easy to relax into the album and not worry about any finger slippage spoiling the performance. It would be fair to say that this is indeed not the jolliest of albums, but it would also be safe to say it is quite fantastic. Tim’s way with words is wonderfully cutting, insightful and observationally bleak without ever straying from the truth.

Lyrically there’s more fiction than fact on offer – although the made up stuff sounds so real and sung with such emotion that you’d swear it all happened. Who Cares? sounds like a Nell Dunn book brought to life – it’s not pretty, but gritty, and upliftingly miserable. Tales of a regretful soldier who describes his pointless fighting as “humiliating”… “don’t let my family grow old without me. Now here come the bombs.” Or far less mundane but no less real, the tribulations of the ‘Saturday Girl’ stuck on the till with the jammed counter-cache – “the customers just won’t understand” – Poor Cow indeed.

Love and rejection feature strongly too. Not love and happiness, obviously. The wonderful use of plucked strings and plonked glock (to lighten the mood and feel), or drawn out and dark strings to do the opposite heighten the emotion. King Edward potatoes feature too (post glock), saved from under the wheels of a Datsun. Then, on the exquisite ‘I Might’ve Been A Keeper’, there’s the man from The Ostler who is proud of his boy who has made the line-up for Uxbridge Reserves (he’s gonna be the next Dimitar Berbatov y’know). Everything is sung with apparent pity, in black and white. Or grey.

Drums appear just the once, on the beautifully dreamy and mid-tempo-yet-downbeat Blocked, prior to the final two tracks. ‘A Sighting Then A Murder’ is a jolly (jolly fantastic) ditty about a twisted tale and mistaken identity of a murder victim -“women like her only fall for the lowest of men”, the press loved it “it was a good bit of business for them”. Oh, it’s all so brilliantly gloomy. It ends on a missing person. Not a found one, obviously. “He left to place a bet on a 3-1 Colchester win. He said I’ll be five minutes, put the kettle on for when I come back in”. Three years later the narrator marries Barbara – this missing person’s wife. Double-barrelled names are discussed, as is closure.

Having listened to Who Cares? many, many times over the last few months, despite it’s obvious dour and dark overtones I’ve never found it depressing. Listening to it on repeat today I probably couldn’t say the same. The album is superb – get it and devour it. Just don’t overdo it.