Goodluck Jonathan - This Is Our Way Out (Album Review)
Tuesday, 05 July 2011
Written by James Ball
With a name like “Goodluck Jonathan”, I partially want them to deliver a terrible album, just so I can use the finisher “because you’re seriously going to need it!” Sadly, however, that’s not going to be any likelihood as, for all intents and purposes, this album’s pretty damn good.
First up, opening track 'Bruises Disappear' is one of the best ways to start off an album I’ve heard this year, probably only behind 'Eulogy' by Frank Turner. It opens with a simple, unassuming, pedal-driven, single note repetition on an electric guitar which, to most, sounds like a boring as fuck way of doing things and, well, it is, but once the actual meat of the song starts just a mere few seconds later you’re treated to a visceral explosion of guitar, snarling spoken sections and desperation all plunged into a sea of smart lyrics, impatient melody and a huge sense of outright tune. Yep, that’s how Goodluck Jonathan arrived in my ears. Hopefully they stay that way.
A little grungy, a little dirty, but well refined. A bit like a mudslinging contest at Eton, Goodluck Jonathan don’t really do anything individually particularly new, so to speak, but they do take a host of different influences in their sound that make up something that, as a result, does sound far more interesting. Traces of heavy metal guitar go toe to toe with plain Jane indie with a tiny bit of more urban-infused bass/spoken word combo creeping in at points. Sometimes it’s a littly proggy. Sometimes it’s a flat out rock song. Sometimes Goodluck Jonathan are bouncing ideas around a single song like it’s traversing all the different genres at once before any of them go out of fashion. As a result, it can sound a bit messy and incoherent, but overall it’s a good stab at a proper debut album.
So then, who are Goodluck Jonathan? Not the Nigerian leader it seems, and that’s a political can of worms I’m leaving sealed shut. They’re a Brighton bunch of scallywags intent on making brooding riot music, designed to claw and scratch, but never lunge carelessly. Brighton is a hotbed of excellent music at this moment (Red Kyte another band from the area who are showing a slow, steady rise), and are living proof that despite the state of the charts at this moment, guitar music well and truly isn’t dead. Lead vocalist Nick Brookes meanders his way beautifully through a swarm of difficult, ready-to-pounce tracks.
Of course, there’s a fun element to all of this too. Placing 'Fatman' directly before 'Fall of America' on the tracklist is clearly a stereotypical jibe at our cousins over the pond. Well, it probably isn’t, but I’d like to think so. The previously mentioned Fatman is an unpredictable jumpy bouncy castle of fun, interspersed with hollering, frantic bridges between each verse. The off-beat guitars during each verse and the crescendo to the chorus is actually unlike anything I’ve heard for quite some while and, thus, remains memorable even after the final seconds of album closer “This is our way out” concludes. In fact, it can be argued that is has more of an impact than Bruises Disappear and that’s saying something quite profound.
As the album heads towards its close, it gets a little more boring, like all the pizazz has been drained by the onslaught of the first half. Both 'Away from Here' and 'Mad Licks' seem to lose a lot of the previous innovation and intrigue that’s soaked what came before, but thankfully, before this album rumbles away, 'Stop' comes out of nowhere and runs you down. “You’re not so fucking clever!” it yells over a math-rock meets industrial-grunge mixture. Suddenly you’re woken up as we head into the closing title track which takes a leaf out the book of Scroobius Pip, offers poetry rather than song over a rather pretty delicate synth and strings affair, until the guitar and drums come in out of absolutely nowhere and, well, ruin it really. It would have been lovely to finish on something stable and sweet, but what follows the poem is just noise. Unwelcome and sour, and it’s a shameful way to finish.
Goodluck Jonathan often straddle the fine line between making something needlessly diverse to the point where it loses its impact. When they’re good, they’re really, really good, and when they don’t quite get it right, it goes more noticeably wrong than most. But, they’re a band with great ideas and great ideas in todays shambles of generic dance, urban and pop rock should be embraced with open arms. So, quite honestly, I do wish them luck.
Never before has a band name been so apt.
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First up, opening track 'Bruises Disappear' is one of the best ways to start off an album I’ve heard this year, probably only behind 'Eulogy' by Frank Turner. It opens with a simple, unassuming, pedal-driven, single note repetition on an electric guitar which, to most, sounds like a boring as fuck way of doing things and, well, it is, but once the actual meat of the song starts just a mere few seconds later you’re treated to a visceral explosion of guitar, snarling spoken sections and desperation all plunged into a sea of smart lyrics, impatient melody and a huge sense of outright tune. Yep, that’s how Goodluck Jonathan arrived in my ears. Hopefully they stay that way.
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