Martin Rossiter: The Defenestration of St Martin

Martin Rossiter
The Defenestration of St Martin
Drop Anchor Music
2012-12-05

Gene were a scandalously overlooked Britpop era band with critics failing to see pass the lame and lazy Oasis wannabe stereotypes that they pigeonholed Gene with. In truth Martin Rossiter was always a consummate songsmith and this is borne out in his solo debut album The Defenstration of St Martin.

This is a cut to quick, stripped bare, raw account of St Martin, his life, his love, his strengths and his failings. All of this is evidenced in the ten-minute-plus opening salvo “Three Points on a Compass” where he intones that “The only thing / I got from you / Was my name” just piano and a searingly honest voice.

While songs like this evince a defiant and cathartic element to the album there is also a yearning cry for help, or perhaps understanding would be a better word to use, with “No One Left to Blame” a realisation that sometimes you just have to accept your own failings in life, confront them and get on with it. We all have these times in our lives, it’s just that we don’t tend to share them with the world (or as articulately).

This is such a beautiful and heart rendering album, Randy Newman would be proud of these songs, Martin Rossiter deserves a reappraisal of one of the best songwriters of his generation. What gorgeous album St Martin has conceived.

RATING 8 / 10