Lucas Nathan’s tenth album under the Jerry Paper moniker is certainly an interesting one. The woozy opener ‘Brown Thumb‘ evinced visions of Rufus Wainwright performing with White Denim at a smoky jazz club immediately after a devastating relationship break-up. ‘Scenic Route‘ immediately after that, is something like the more serious work of Flight Of The Conchords man Bret McKenzie, with a slight hint of Donald Fagen‘s The Nightfly thrown in for good measure. If that means well crafted songs with strong musicianship, then it’s all good with me.
It’s all been a little downbeat so far (not a problem, incidentally), so the quirkier, somewhat Joe Jackson-like ‘Front Ear (My Bread)‘ is a welcome reprieve with its stabby synths and infectious swirl, before what is arguably my favourite track here, ‘Moonstruck‘, makes its appearance, kind of like 10cc meets Teenage Fanclub. Actually if I had to just pick one band to compare Jerry Paper to, it almost certainly would be Stockport’s finest, given this artist’s panache for writing clever songs with an appealing commercial bent.
Anyway, I don’t want this review merely to be a track by track analysis, so moving on to the highlights of the record, I would have to pick the sludgy, robot voiced backing of ‘In Betwee‘ as a standout, which seems to incorporate shades of Beck and Prince, somehow ending up like some kind of fucked up Disney cartoon. It’s quite wonderful how Nathan has managed such a thing. ‘New Year’s Day‘, meanwhile, sounds like Super Furry Animals, and that can only be a good thing, right?
Other than that, we have techno style diversions in the shape of ‘Trixter-Sez‘, the easy, commercial slacker-pop of ‘Everything Angel’ and the short, trippy instrumental ”A Song On The Tip Of My Mind‘, before ‘Powder Pink Powder Green‘ has Nathan sounding like The National‘s Matt Berninger if they’d just inhaled from a bong concocted by Ariel Pink.
It’s testament to the songwriting credentials of Lucas Nathan that they can still compose music of such depth and sometimes haunting beauty this far down the road into their career. Great stuff.
