BARELY 18 months after he released a pair of contrasting LPs on the same day, bold borderland bard Jinx Lennon is back with another new album, Grow A Pair!!!, a double-set which finds him further making up for a good few years there where he released nothing at all.
Following in the wake of 2016's Clinic-assisted Magic Bullets of Madness To Uplift The Grief Magnets and its counterpart Past Pupil Stay Sane, the Dundalk favourite's provocatively titled new record is a heady brew of raw and real stories featuring all too familiar characters and situations – 18 empathetic tunes infused with personal dramas, social commentary and a general dissatisfaction with the status quo.
For this album of "border cosmic folk sounds" (it says here) recorded by northern music stalwart Ben Reel, Jinx's signature beat boxes and electronic noise-makers have been consigned to the cupboard/Cash Converters in favour of his trusty acoustic guitar, a bass drum and other occasional 'old skool' instrumentation.
There's also a renewed focus on 'proper' singing on Grow, with the distinctive Jinx Lennon vocal barks/howls/grunts of old largely sidelined in favour of a more croonsome approach.
For example, You Will Be Kept's pleasingly unsentimental declaration of devotion to the musician's young daughter Rose (who makes her own vocal cameo at the end of the song) is a touching lullaby delivered in uncharacteristically tender, hushed tones.
You'll already have heard evidence of Jinx's more tuneful side on his catchy new country/folk ballad 300 Pianos, released as a single last month and probably the last song ever to namecheck Irish country music icon Big Tom before his untimely demise (a mere coincidence, we're sure).
However, lest he be in any danger of becoming a 'grannies' favourite', elsewhere Jinx's voice is also pushed right over the top for emphatic effect; jaunty gee-up Top Of The Bleedin' Morning, crazed country/western lament The Wheel Will Turn Again and the rousingly defiant numbers Black Polly Bag and One Day I Awoke offer pleasingly rowdy contrast to the album's more placid moments.
The album is shot-through with a characteristically dark humour: Silver Spoon finds him donning the Make America Great Again cap of the Trump supporter, Wine Glass Goggles is a memorable murder ballad laced with booze and infidelity, We Don't See Anything offers a sing-along slice of 'say nothing' country living, while The Newry Bird's deceptively soothing cautionary tale about courting northern republican women ("you can't forget the look on your dear mum's face as your love sang The Boys of The Old Brigade, rammed on vodka and red lemonade") is one of the stand-outs of the new collection.
Trad-tinged dissenter's anthem The GPO is another gem, skillfully skewering our country's self-destructive obsession with tribal battles of the past while ignoring its ever-more problematic present.
As for rousing title track, another song which finds Jinx veering from tuneful croon to lung-bursting bellow, it offers a musical reminder to try to stand up for ourselves and others even when things seem tough.
Grow A Pair!!! is currently available to buy via Jinxlennon1.bandcamp.com and is streaming via Spotify, but you can hear some of these new numbers done live tomorrow night at The Sunflower in Belfast alongside favourites from the ever-expanding Jinx Lennon back-catalogue.
Support comes courtesy of our own Acoustic Dan, with special guests The Bones adding further value for money to the yet-to-be-determined (but no doubt entirely affordable) cover charge.
From veteran performer to fresh new talent we move, with words on Seatbelts For Aeroplanes, the debut album from Brand New Friend.
The hirsute Castlerock punk popsters are currently out on tour with Snow Patrol, but they found time to launch their magnum opus with a triumphant show at The Black Box in Belfast at the end of last month.
The record has been raking in positive notices from just about everywhere, and it's not hard to hear why. Packed with an abundance of infectious caffeinated energy, catchy choruses, pleasingly unpolished rough edges and absolute lack of pretence, Seatbelts For Aeroplanes is pretty much exactly what you want from a promising young pop punk unit's debut LP.
It's a teenage rampage from start to finish, a stream of effortlessly catchy songs zipping by in a breathless, zero-fat blur of buzzsaw guitars and yearning girl/boy vocals, driven by a heads-down rhythm section and peppered with playful plinky-plonky electric piano.
Mosh fodder like Mediocre At Best, Girl, Hate It When You Have To Go and the cheekily titled Slow (hint: it's not) is offset by the more considered, mid-tempo attacks of Milk Chews, Sleep On My Floor, the acoustic guitar-enhanced A&E and the slow-burning drama of The Blame.
Immediate stand-outs include the instantly memorable moments I Was An Astronaut, I Love You Goodbye, Why Are You So Tired and the break-up anthemics of the title track, while album closer Cold is as decent a Weezer homage as you're likely to hear all year.
It's a fine and fizzy, deceptively simplistic album on which Brand New Friend make a successful smash 'n' grab on the senses and then leg it before outstaying their welcome.
How the quartet evolve from here is anyone's guess – perhaps they'll lose some of their youthful squeaky cleanness in rock and roll drug habits and trips to rehab, and hopefully a chunk of the Seatbelts For Aeroplanes millions is invested in some interesting new keyboard sounds – but there's little doubt the band will always be able to look back fondly on this plucky debut, the key songs from which will surely remain in their live set for many years to come.
Find the album in record shops and online music stores now and keep in touch via Brandnewfriend.co.uk and the usual social media platforms.
Finally for this week, be advised that Damo out of Can will shortly be returning to Belfast for a show at The Menagerie, where he will adopt noted local psychedelic jammers Electric Octopus as his 'sound carriers' for an evening of improvised krautrockingness.
May 23 is the date for your diary, and you may also want to scribble down the fact that the show will feature supporting turns from like-minded heads BlumeHaus and Unbelievable Lake.
Tickets are £13 in advance via Tinyurl.com/damomenagerie.
