There are drawbacks to playing second fiddle (or, in this case, lead guitar) to a songwriting genius, especially if said genius (in this case,
Ray Davies) is your older brother.
Dave Davies' contributions to
the Kinks have thus been overshadowed, a sad fact that his self-released EP
Fortis Green is, alas, unlikely to redress. A synth-heavy collection of home-recorded demos,
Fortis Green manages to sound overproduced and underproduced at the same time, as though the singer were being backed by
John Tesh in someone's bathroom. It's a shame, because some of these songs would probably sound pretty good with a less electronic, less lo-fi approach. "Away From You," for example, seems like a pleasant ballad under that Casio wall of sound. The disc's one high point is the title track, a nostalgic song about
Dave's London childhood that
the Kinks themselves could have recorded, circa 1967.