It is quite a bold move to base a conceptual project around a song character on a classic album then moulding it musically to the style of pop masters like The Beatles. If you want the audience to accept your premise you must at least create something that can sit in tandem with work established as amongst the greatest of all time, otherwise it looks like mere bandwagon riding. In taking the Mr. Mustard character from ‘Abbey Road’ and imagining him as a queer icon, digging into the early twentieth century life that shaped a man who would end up in 1969 living in a park, yelling at people with a ten bob note up his nose, Caleb Nichols set himself that very challenge. Opening tune ‘Listen To The Beatles’ lays Caleb’s cards on the table from the outset, although it should also be noted that a favourable comparison to Elliott Smith would be wholly appropriate with the tone of this song. No shame there, if ever there was an artist who processed and brilliantly reconfigured the bittersweet essence of late sixties Beatle music it was Elliott. ‘Dog Days,’ with its driving rhythms and destabilising section of head voices sitting jarringly underneath this pure pop tune, shows an artist with the range to operate on a similar level. ‘Run Rabbit Run’ realizes the considerable feat of tapping into both McCartney’s love of an elaborate, juicy melody and simultaneously Lennon’s world-weary, laid-back posturing.

The tiny details that the Beatles sprinkled over their own studio work are lovingly applied here; ahead of ‘Ramon’ there is a burst of applause a-la ‘Bungalow Bill’ but Caleb is alert to the power in a contrast between tracks revisiting the Elliott/George Harrison mode and a wonderful dash of melancholy it is too, ending with the most Beatle-esque of shifts into a solitary, gloriously sunny, major chord. And whilst I make these fab comparisons, it must be emphasised that these are all superbly written, totally new songs that are merely working within the same open-minded pop template as the Beatles and executing it with class, there is a major difference between this and a bland pastiche. ‘She’s The Beard’ is a knowingly bonkers slice of rocking psychedelia and a splendid example of what Caleb has done. The strength in the song is all in the musical elements, the lubricious descending chord patterns of the chorus especially; that is the thing that made Beatles music so timeless. Yes, they mastered the art first, but I would argue that if you want to make perfect sounding pop this is still the way to go.

Brevity can be a powerful weapon in this context also and this suite of eleven songs do fly past in thirty-six brilliant minutes. The central character, Mean Mr Mustard, is addressed directly in ‘Captain Custard’ alongside a teetering McCartney la-la-la chorus line while album highlight ‘Jerome’ is a sprightly, earworm of a tune that crystalizes everything wonderful about Britpop across the decades. The treasures do not abate, within moments ‘Mustard’s Blues’ showers the listener in sexy fuzz guitar soloing. That yearning indie-folk element returns on ‘I Can’t Tell You’ but once more, this is a great song almost guilty of getting out too quick, thus underselling the brilliance in the writing. ‘From A Hole In The Road’ stares into some unending dark abyss before falling gloriously into the stars with the words “I still dream of you” spiralling around our heads. We end with a serene and moving acoustic ballad ‘I Fell In Love On Christmas Day’ which, for such a Beatle related project seems apt, love is all you need after all. In our modern musical landscape there is so much Beatle Juice around, there has been for decades and blatant association is not enough in itself to make a great record. But when you approach the task like Caleb Nichols has, like the Beatles themselves did, by making the nuts and bolts of melodic song writing and imagination within your lyrical flourishes the core elements of the work, then brilliant music can still result; that is exactly what has happened with ‘Ramon’, a real hidden gem buried in the debris of 2022 album releases, check it out.

Buy a vinyl copy of ‘Ramon’ here: https://www.discogs.com/release/23691227-Caleb-Nichols-Ramon