Visiting Hours

This is a wordy but oh so fitting moniker for Shayne O'Neill's music, as the Future Kings of Nowhere perfectly captures the insouciant grandness he aspires to, with the self-deprecating twist that is the secret to his success. Actually, the secret to his success is summed up best on "I'm Still Waiting": "Take my quick observations and my questions and my poor explanations and wrap them up into rhymes. Weave them around my mouth, suffer me up into brilliance, until no-one doesn't know my name." With a sharp eye for mundane details, a wry wit, and an occasional ironic twist, the Future King and his cortege of guesting alterno-royalty take a royal trip around O'Neill's ragtag inner realm. Along the way there are amends to make, specifically on "Paper Napkins," an apology to the ex-girlfriend who's been the foil of the singer's many breakup songs. Perhaps "Never" describes their relationship, "Like a Staring Contest" their "trainwreck of an ending," but surely not the girl who did a runner and addressed in a folksy letter from home on "C Is for Heartache." There again, when you entangle yourself with women with a history of "high speed chase, no dialogue," as O'Neill does on "I Want You," it's no wonder problematic relationships make up the bulk of this set.