When the offspring of a successful musician decides to follow in their paternal footsteps, it's hard not to suppress a shudder - after all, the musical works of Julian Lennon, Jakob Dylan and Adam Cohen have hardly set the world on fire. Thankfully, however, the debut album of the son of the late, lamented Ian Dury reveals him to be a genuine talent in his own right. Largely written around the time of his father's death, the crazily-titled Len Parrots Memorial Lift is essentially made up of fragile, poignant wisps of psychedelia, some of which recall the more delicate moments of Mercury Rev. There's also the occasional trace of his dad's brand of vaudevillian punk, which should please old Blockheads fans no end. But while the album contains contributions from the veteran Blockheads bass player Norman Watt-Roy, Jason Hazeley of Ben and Jason and the guitarist Richard Hawley, it never sounds like anything other than the idiosyncratic vision of one melancholic, vaguely troubled young man. Baxter Dury has proved himself to be well capable of carrying on the baton for his father - but more than that, he's done enough on his first solo outing to suggest that he'll also be running his own race.
