With This is The Thing currently gracing a Mastercard advert, perhaps Fink is hoping to follow in the footsteps of José González. (At least if we pretend The Knife-penned Heartbeats wasn't a one-off success commercially speaking.) Fink, you see, is another earnest bloke with an acoustic guitar. He doesn't just come with the baggage of Gravenhurst and Jeff Buckley, say, but many of the more non-descript artists of this type one hears on the radio. That is a helluva lot of cases. Unfortunately, with Distance and Time he never really breaks away from the pack.

Trouble's What You're In makes for a mesmerising and foreboding opening track, the guitar suggesting flickers of sunlight through autumn trees. Nothing else on Distance and Time is as captivating, however, and, as we can all no doubt agree, it's a bugger when the first song on an album is also the best. Still, If Only, one of the lighter moments here, despite being about not getting the girl, demonstrates his knack with a lyric, and Little Blue Mailbox takes things to a turbulent, rockier climax.

The problem is, as with many similar artists, Fink paints with a somewhat narrow musical palette, while not providing enough memorable melodies. Unless you're an acoustic devotee, instead of paying attention to the words (which you probably should), chances are you will find your mind wandering.