After writing and submitting a song for the soundtrack to Mel Gibson's Braveheart - the track was rejected - Glaswegian singer/songwriter McEwan left his teaching job and headed south where he honed his melodic, melancholic, guitar-oriented pop on the Tube trains of London, playing to an audience - albeit a captive one - of commuters before hopping off at the next station and moving down one carriage. He felt the reaction gained on the Northern Line and elsewhere justified his artistic pursuits and led to yet more songs, a stint playing the clubs and bars of LA, gaining support from the likes of the Average White Band's Hamish Stuart and, ultimately, the founding of his own label, Forge, on which this debut album is released. The songs are put together well enough and in more than one place not a little reminiscent of stuff by the likes of David Gray and Damien Rice on the one hand and Scot rockers Del Amitri - and even Deacon Blue, heaven forbid - on the other. Indeed Amitri's Andy Alston plays keyboards on the first single to be taken from the album, She Must Be Crazy.

It's all easy on the ear and should have the tastemakers of Radio 2 slavering for more, but if it's more challenging fare you're after you're unlikely to find it on Beautiful Lies.