Dave Dobbyn and the Stone People: Lament for the Numb

	Song List
1.	Lament for the Numb
2.	Falling off a Log
3.	Belle of the Ball
4.	The Expert
5.	Palace
6.	Bring the House Down
7.	Buried in the Backyard
8.	Maybe the Rain
9.	Belltower
10.	Love over All
11.	Don't Hold Your Breath

DAVE DOBBYN has shown us his gift for irresistible pop songs. After an absurdly long wait (it's was five years since Loyal), Dobbyn headed out to Los Angeles to work on a new album with Mitchell Froom and Bruce and Pete Thomas of Elvis Costello's Attractions. It seemed as if the time to display that pop mastery to the rest of the planet might finally have arrived. But what he came back was a surprise: his darkest, most difficult disc to date.

There are no "Slice of Heaven"s on Lament for the Numb: more like slices of hell. Dobbyn had been through his share of emotional trauma prior to recording the album - the deaths of his father and former bass-player Ian Belton, and whatever frustrations years in the commercial wilderness bring - and the album seemed to have been his catharsis. The first thing that strikes you is its rawness. For most of these songs Dobbyn's voice and guitar are cranked up to overdrive. Even on the ballads the nerve-endings seem exposed...

[excerpt adapted from Nick Bollenger's review of Lament for the Numb.]

Dave Dobbyn and the Stone People

Trafalgar Records (Warner) (1993)

CD: 450992330-2