Yes, finally, John Murry has a new album out. He will be touring here in the UK during July and September to promote it, so go and see him if you can.
The album opens at funereal pace on Silver Or Lead as slowly the tale of being told you'd be paid in Silver but get lead instead unfolds. John sounds as melancholy as ever and this stripped back but full sound is very cool indeed.
Under a Darker Moon really picks up the pace. It features some really cool guitar buzzing away in your ears as another stoned tale unfolds. is he begging for forgiveness or just some understanding? Who knows, but it's a very cool song once again.
Wrong Man whose album downloads in the wrong format one that my computer will only play one track at a time rather than as an album very odd it doesn't like AIFF's. Odder than John singing about a man running shotgun on murder mile who has blood running into his boots. Again, he sounds like he's lived every word he's singing over this slowly strummed song with a very cool keyboard sound in the background. It's almost like a slowed down and more down Tindersticks if that's possible.
Defacing Sunday Bulletins is another faster song that seems to be cut and pasted from a bunch of Sunday paper or news headlines. They relate to man's inability to get along with his fellow man and John's inability to get along with his companions. It's a wonderfully dark gothic blues song.
Having finished with the papers on a Sunday it's time for When God Walks In and hopefully John finds a little redemption for the chaos around him now he's settled into being in Ireland rather than the USA even if this album was recorded in Canada with the help of various Cowboy Junkies and other local music legends. This song sounds like the band are feeling their way through it and that it could have been recorded by Jim Dickinson.
Come Five And Twenty is another slow song that opens with a murder and gets darker from there. Cait O'Riordan comes into it as well as the gorgeous strings to accompany the despair perfectly.
|
One Day (You'll Die) is John's torchlight song with a no drugs feel to it, which is sort of odd. John seems to be singing ahead of the music slightly that works as a cool effect and this has all sorts of odd almost dub-by noises going on like they are trying for country dub styling. It's quite odd and weird as John is singing about the prescription drugs again; just about how being drug free made him feel.
Countess Lola's Blues (We're All In This Together) with another singer could almost be a pop rock song but with John's dark emotions and Cate's backing this is more of another dark examination of how we are all in this life together. That might not be such a great thing as I listen to this and can imagine a crowd singing along to the repeated refrain of "We're all in this together" as the guitars go off and sort of fizzle away.
Miss Magdalene asks the question of if you still believe in Christ after seeing your son bleed out. Yes this is another murder ballad with more twists than most as it shovels Vicodin down its neck.
The album closes with What Jail's Like. Yes it's John's look at what he felt like being banged up and how he deals with the situation. It's slow as the time dragging by and life is passing by over the cool strummed guitar and it almost seems like it's about being a prisoner of the soul as much as being the criminal kind. A very cool denouement to another really cool album that I'll be buying physically when I see John on his UK tour in a couple of weeks' time.
Go and find out how to get this album and all the tour dates at John Murry online
|
