The Grim’s second album is Disappointing. Which was the whole point. If you find it disappointing, then you won’t be disappointed. But I will let you make your own mind up about that.

I had a few choices of what to do for the second album. One of them being ‘don’t bother’.

However, I thought I was starting to get the hang of this thing, so I wanted to plough on and dig another furrow. This time, I would take more care and attention. The first album was a shambles of bits and bobs thrown together willy nilly; it was the monster to my Dr Frankenstein. This time I would create a thing of beauty… like the Bride of Frankenstein.

If the first album was a bowl of cupcakes, Disappointing would be a gateau.

First of all, I needed a theme.

I had already decided on the album title. But how could I follow through with the promise of Disappointing? I needed to disappoint myself. In ways I hadn’t yet considered.

First up, I set about writing a thoroughly disappointing title track. Something that just went on and on and on and on and on and… without actually getting anywhere. It needed to come across as the introduction to something epic and amazing, building and building to an inevitable climax, with a theme that it kept coming back to, and that the listener would expect to break out into the most glorious, uplifting, life-affirming final chorus. But, in the end, it would do nothing, and the listener would be left wondering why they’d bothered to waste 20 minutes of their life on this nonsense.

Sadly, I don’t think I really managed to keep my pecker up on the entire endeavour. I couldn’t help but throw in a bit of quirky catchiness every now and then. It didn’t quite end up as disappointing as I’d hoped but, hey ho, it was worth a go.

The rest of the album though! Now, there’s disappointing for you! Call that music? Call that art?