IT WASN’T IN THE SCRIPT reviews

For years the New York-by-way-of-London singer-songwriter has been making records that wear their hearts on their sleeves like medals — messy, wilful, intelligent records that the mainstream press consistently failed to notice and the independent music world quietly adored. Now, on his most nakedly personal work to date, he has done something genuinely radical: he has written an album about his daughter. Not a song. Not a touching bonus track. Twelve songs, front to back, one long love letter dressed in twelve different costumes.

The conceit could so easily tip into sentimentality of the cloying, greeting-card variety. It does not. Spottiswoode is constitutionally incapable of saccharine. He is too much the wit, too much the bruiser, too much the poet who knows that the most honest compliment lands sideways rather than head-on.

Martha Redbone joins on two tracks and does precisely what the press release promises: she takes the roof off. But the album's most quietly extraordinary choice is this: Spottiswoode's daughter Sophie Lee sings backing vocals on more than half the record. Her presence is not a gimmick. It is the entire sonic argument. A child's voice does something to music that no amount of production can manufacture — it introduces fragility, time, the knowledge that nothing stays. Every time Sophie Lee appears on these tracks, the stakes rise.

Comparisons will be made — The Kinks, Leonard Cohen, Lucinda Williams, Ray Charles — and they are not wrong, exactly, but they are not the point. Spottiswoode sounds like nobody but Spottiswoode: mordant, tender, funny, occasionally furious, always searching for the precise word when the approximate one would do perfectly well and simply isn't good enough.

Fatherhood has undone better artists than this. It has softened them, made them careful, drained the blood from their work in the name of propriety. Spottiswoode has gone the other way entirely. This is his most dangerous record because it is his most honest. He has handed over the keys to someone who cannot even drive yet, and the album is all the better for it.
INDIEMUSICBLOG

“Spottiswoode transforms a father's love into a tender, off-kilter, funny, and utterly disarming rock cabaret. He dives headfirst into it with the elegance of a sentimental dandy, an electric guitar, dry humor, and this almost incongruous idea: to make an entire album about being a father before his daughter is old enough to roll her eyes.
"It Wasn't In The Script" is like an album impossible to properly pitch. Too funny to be merely sentimental. Too touching to be merely ironic. Too rock to be a Father's Day card. Spottiswoode delivers a rare record: an album about fatherhood that feels neither moralistic nor saccharine, but rather like life as it happens, messy, sublime, and utterly unplanned.”
Extravafrench

“After seven acclaimed records with Spottiswoode & His Enemies, the IMA winner lets this chapter feel stripped back, personal, and alive with strange domestic magic.”
Amelia Vandergast
A&R Factory

“The Anglo-American troubadour’s new album IT WASN’T IN THE SCRIPT is a therapeutic and desperate gesture: to release a beautiful record about fatherhood before his ten-year-old daughter grows up and starts to feel embarrassed by him.
“Now that I’m a father I’m blown away by how few tunes there really are about the relationship between parent and child. Are other older artists scared of being considered fossils? My mission as a songwriter has always been to channel the experiences of my life into words and music. Nothing has changed. Except me.”
Spottiswoode is a man of the Renaissance: a playwright, author of rock musicals, and screenwriter. But IT WASN’T IN THE SCRIPT is his best script. Listen to it. Perhaps after these twelve tracks you will want to rewrite your own life script – or become a father.
VoxWave Magazine

“He is savouring every moment right now, but he is also aware that things might fall apart (I'm A Worrier) or even end abruptly (The Bullet's Coming). He has to play another part now, being a father, and as millions of guys before him, he is making it up as he goes along. As a seasoned artist he can give voice to his feelings through song, turning personal hassles into a bunch of snapshots that have a universal appeal.”
Hans Werkman
HERE COMES THE FLOOD

“The Anglo-American artist, playwright, and bandleader turns his attention toward fatherhood this time around, crafting an album that’s sentimental without getting syrupy and funny without losing emotional bite. He embraces the bedlam, unpredictability, tenderness, and absurdity of parenthood all at once.
Spottiswoode’s deep, expressive voice cuts sharply through the arrangements as he sings about life refusing to stick to neat storylines. There’s wit in his delivery, but also exhaustion and wonder, like a father realizing the rulebook got tossed out the window years ago.
What makes It Wasn’t In The Script land so powerfully is its humanity. Spottiswoode is simply telling the truth, the messy, funny, bittersweet truth, and sometimes that hits harder than anything else.”
Illustrate Magazine

“The sound of a psychedelic 60s summer resounds through Oh, What a Beautiful World, the latest single by the eccentrically ingenious artist Spottiswoode. Forget about where you fit in the optimism-pessimism binary when you hit play; the quirky retro indie aesthetic of the release possesses a cerebrally witty way of injecting enough whimsy to start a pandemic of joy into spaces where most just see run-of-the-mill mundanity.”
Amelia Vandergast
A&R Factory review of “Oh, What A Beautiful World” (Track 4)

Being the frontman for his seven piece jazz rock band Spottiswoode & His Enemies, he’s a seasoned artist and a master lyricist. It definitely shows on It Wasn’t In The Script, which is also the lead single on his eponymous album.

The song is a classic 1960s R&B style, relying on tight grooves, soulful keys and rhythmic guitar fills which makes everything feel delightfully organic. Spottiswoode’s gritty, conversational singing style blends brilliantly with the charming backing vocals of his daughter – driving the joy of the song home.
Cougar Microbes Playlist pick

“One of those albums that sticks with you for a long time.”
Bored City

Read Spott’s interview with Bored City HERE

Hear Spott’s interview with Chris Kocher at The Signal Binghamton HERE

Hear Spott’s interview with Mark Rosenblatt of WPKN Bridgeport
HERE