Angel Air 2015
Pourin’ juice on blue suede shoes: there’s a whole lotta madness goin’ on.
Searchin’ For A Lemon Squeezer
“God Loves An Idiot” might serve as an anthem for this album that picks up where "Who Needs Pyjamas?" left off, so it wasn’t a one-off thing laid down on the way to JERUSALEM’s "Black Horses" album. More so, a concept emerges now with the titular question of the POETS’ debut popping up in actual verses which set things in crazy motion. So while the joke overstays its welcome, what remain is songs – of the pastiche sort, and snippet-short sometimes, but standing their shaky ground.
The mood gets sweetly nervous in the funky “We’re All Chasing Peter Pan” whose tight groove hangs on a tasty riff, yet there’s panache in the rockabilly of “Bad Is Bad” wherein Lynden Williams’ voice stages a sway before Geoff Downes slings his piano and then Hammond into boogie. The real action plays out in the lyrics, though, the simmering AOR of “Jerk” wrapping grotesque imagery over its seriousness, and if “Quick Joey Small” glistens with a glitterball kind of fun, the riffs under “Everybody Wants To Live In America” sharpen the piece’s satirical stance and add a bluesy punch to its soulful social swirl.
As a result, the request to “forget about ham” in the heavily pulsing “We Like Tarts” is hard to ignore, once it’s out of a culinary context, yet then “I’m Gonna’ Tear Your Playhouse Down” flows so sweet it packs no threat – there’s a promise of pleasure instead. To deliver on that, still, a line should be drawn between hilarious and truly happy, and the uplifting finale of “Just Life” points exactly there.
***
