PITY John Matthews and his impeccable sense of poor timing. Remember The High? Fronted by Matthews, they arrived on the 1990s' "baggy" scene just as the last hooded top was being bagged for the jumble sale.

A couple of skirmishes with the charts followed, but the under-rated High were soon dropped and Matthews' musical career looked over before it had really begun. After travelling the globe, Matthews is back making music and fronting Black September.

But once again, you can't help feeling he has missed the boat. "You Can Do..." is not a bad album. Deliberately under-produced, you sense, it is sometimes poetic and poignant, with plenty of ideas and invention amid tinges of Buffalo Tom and the Violent Femmes. However, while it snags and prods, it never quite reels the listener in. In the era of The Darkness, of spandex and not taking yourself too seriously, it all seems a little bit too angst-ridden, introspective and melancholic to create a scene. A worthy attempt, but in the end a bit too worthy.

Updated: 08:57 Thursday, March 04, 2004