Graham Smith - Final Battle

Anyone else heard this? This is the dude behind Kleenex Girl Wonder recording under his own name for the first time. I think he's a great pop songwriter whose past work is strong enough to transcend mere indie-ness.
Final Battle isn't exactly successful but very interesting. Great lyrics, but all of the songs have the same amplified acoustic guitar strum sound that makes everything kind of blur together. While Smith has always written break up songs before, this record has a dark and depressive sound to it I think. However, I'm not sure if I reach that conclusion primarily because the other few reviews of this I can find on the web allude vaguely to tragic recent events in Smith's life.

Smith has unfortunately left behind all hip hop influences but some of the best moments on the record occur when he uses arhythmic beats. While these are pop songs with strong melodies, he seldom repeats lyrics for the different run thoroughs of the chorus, making the songs less memorable as hook-ey pop but more rewarding on repeated listen for their excessive and detailed wordiness.
I don't know, I just found it odd that there have been very few reviews of the record and apparently no published interviews with Graham Smith about it. If anyone knows of any they can link, or had their own thoughts about the record, that would be great.