It all seemed very strange to me; big names = big money. So why the hell was this guy giving it away for free? Is it (rubs his hands with glee) because it turned out a pile of shit?

A first look at the album cover made me hate everything about Rubinacci. It's the cock sure Italian stallion audacity of having his shirt open down to his stomach. It's the oh so pretty "look at me" foto of him that's obviously been run through Photoshop. I dearly wanted this album to be shit, so I could rip it apart piece-by-piece, ousting Rubinacci for all his lack of indie credentials. The fact that this is reportedly one of the most expensive debut albums made in years, made him an even bigger target. Fair game…

Unfortunately, to my utter dismay, I cannot tear this album apart, for one has to admit that there are some truly beautiful songs on it.

Rubinacci was born in Rome, is half English half Italian…blah blah blah… who gives a shit…If you're interested in his story then go to his Bio page. This is about the music not the man.

"Heart & Mind" is a bold undertaking. It attempts to discreetly dovetail two genres of music, which rarely come together easily; acoustic confessional folk with pop music. Rubinacci bravely keeps one foot in each camp whilst not confusing or losing the listener, a feat in itself.

On the one hand you have the big brash pop songs "Chinese Whisper" "This Story" and "She Makes Me Feel", (the latter lacking only two female lead singers, one brunette and one blonde for it to sound like an Abba number). Here the sound pallet is full and overflowing; strings burst out of the seams, percussion bites and snarls everywhere, backing vocals sweeten and colour the melodies. The songs barely stop for breath.

Then in the other camp you have the stripped down acoustic "bare my soul" songs such as "Mountains", "Avocado Cure" and the very beautiful "The Boys At Twilight". In a complete reversal in lyrical approach, whereas songs such as "She Makes Me Feel" are straightforward pop songs with hardly any use of metaphor, in these acoustic songs the lyrics become an exercise subterfuge, draped in metaphor and often unclear as to their true meaning.

In "Mountains" Rubinacci sings in the refrain "10, 000 years are breaking". One cannot help but wonder what he's refering to. In "Avocado Cure" he sings "Somewhere there's a clock ticking in reverse, somewhere there's a heart beating on the edge of the Universe", whilst never identifying what the clock ticks for, or who's heart exactly is beating out in space.

The one song that manages to combine the intimacy/confessional lyric of the acoustic style with the more extroverted character of Pop music, is track 5, "How Long". More than just a stand out track, this is one of the best songs I've heard this year so far. This is one of the two songs produced by English producer Ian Grimble, he that manned the controls on such hits as "Why Does It Always Rain On Me" by Travis and "The Other Side Of The World" by KT Tunstall.

The verses are sparse drawing the listener whilst the choruses open into a truly memorable pop melody. The lyrical approach here is also completely pop. Simple, confessional and easy to relate to, opening with the line "Part of me hates you, for making me feel this way. But most of me loves you, and there's nothing more that I can say".

The rest of the nine tracks are produced by none other than Tchad Blake, the man behind some very unique and ground breaking albums such as Pearl Jam's "Binaural" and Paul Simon's last album "Surprise". Not to mention that he's worked with some of the very biggest names in music such as Tracy Chapman, Sheryl Crow, Suzanne Vega and Tom Waits, to name but a very few.

Ultimately "Heart & Mind" somehow achieves what it sets out to do, combine the commercial with the personal. As the last song on the album "The Boys At Twilight", draws to an end, a song that features just acoustic guitar and hypnotic flute, the curtain feels like its been drawn shut, and that Rubinacci has said all he wanted to say on this album, and has left the building.

A truly impressive debut album that leads one to wonder where this artist's career may lead to…

- Hells Bells