Johnny Foreigner- 'Grace and The Bigger Picture'

Grace and the Bigger Picture is disappointing.

Don’t worry; the Birmingham trio's second album proper is no disaster. Far from it. It’s just that 2008’s debut Waited Up 'Til It Was Light was such a perfect mix of snotty punk attitude, college rock choruses and jagged edge riffs that all who came in contact with it fell under its spell, poring over its every detail (like knowing the amount of drum beats in ‘Salt and Peppa Spinderella’) and spinning uncontrollably during ‘The End And Everything After’. The record is practically perfect and an amazing piece to the Awesome Pals! jigsaw, which is what makes this follow up a harder pill to swallow. Not much has changed in sound or style, and the same details are dealt with the lashing courtesy of Alexei’s caustic tongue, yet things feel missing and short. One of the worries about Johnny Foreigner and this new record is that they don’t appear to be able to see past their own noses. Touring their instruments and transport into the ground is the lifeblood of the band but has left them with a lack of context and variation in song themes and you soon realise that pretty much every song on Grace and the Bigger Picture is about playing gigs, going to festivals, local promoters or tales of being on the road. It might make for memorable listening inside the band circle but outside of it things sound worryingly like the indie equivalent of a mega pop star detailing the fame and fortune of their life in intricate detail.

The second problem here is the sound. Having enlisted Alex Newport (At The Drive-In, Death Cab) to produce it, it's somewhat surprising that the end result of ‘Grace…’ is a stop start roller coaster of quality in which beats often fall flat and guitars sound limp. Take ‘Ghost The Festivals’ for example which barely sounds out of demo stage, whilst ‘Dark Harbourzz’ (song titles need some work too) is perhaps one distorted punk thrash too many. At 15 tracks the album more than outstays its welcome. In fact by the time finale ‘The Coast Was Always Clear’ rolls around the skip button is pretty well thumbed. JoFo have never been a band that click immediately with the listener. Their hooks lie around corners and choruses lie dormant in your brain for months before they are illuminated and make sense, but despite repeated hammerings, too much of Grace and the Bigger Picture seems unable to even get its foot in the door, to the point that a good third of the record merely grates.

That said there is much to be taken from the album. There are four or five songs on here that many bands would kill to have in their arsenal, including the brilliant ‘Criminals’. Like Future Of The Left's ‘That Damned Fly’, ‘Criminals’ takes great pleasure in taking people in the industry to account for their crimes amidst a hurricane of flailing guitars and future crowd surfing memories. Elsewhere the interplay between Alexei and bassist Kelly remains one of the band's strongest points, highlighted best on ‘Custom Scenes and the Parties That Built Them’ and frantic album opener ‘Choose Yr Side and Shut Up!’. Despite having earlier said most Johnny Foreigner songs take a while to reveal themselves, you can’t say that about ‘Feels Like Summer, a sub-120 second party anthem seemingly designed to incite the spilling of beer and mass hugs. A clear album highlight, you’d be well advised to look up the fantastic remix courtesy of Internet Forever.

Grace and the Bigger Picture is a good, solid album but as follow up to an amazing debut, and in the same year as magical work from contemporaries Sky Larkin, Dananananaykroyd and Copy Haho, you can’t help but come away from it feeling slightly let down. With focus, time and a keen editing eye there is no doubt that JoFo will scale great heights again, but first the band are going to have to look at their own bigger picture.

DrownedinSound.com
7/10

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GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL

Johnny Foreigner 'Criminals'

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Two free Johnny Foreigner tracks

Johnny Foreigner (or JoFo, if you're a dick) are in their own words "About to leave their beds for the longest time ever". Said duvet departure is to A) Tour Europe with Sky Larkin B) Record their second album in New York and C) Tour the UK with Hundred Reasons (Yes, they actually do still exist)

Part B) is most exciting as JoFo (I'm a dick) are recording with Alex Newport, a man who has worked with At The Drive in and Death Cab For Cutie amongst many others. If the results are half as good as 'Stayed Up 'Till It Was Light' then we will be very lucky.

As a result of the writing process for album 2 the band have an excess of songs of which they are handing out two for free. Lap them up like soup for the homeless.

Johnny Foreigner zip file

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First acts for Great Escape 2009 announced

British Sea Power
The Big Pink
Holy Fuck
Little Boots
The Chapman Family
Passion Pit
Lightspeed Champion
Metronomy
The Handsome Family
Future Of The Left
Johnny Foreigner
Danananakroyd
The Joy Formidable
Chew Lips
To The Bones
Kasms
Your Twenties
Esser
Pulled Apart By Horses
The Soft Pack
Cage The Elephant
Kissy Sellout
The Pipettes
VV Brown
Let's Wrestle
Official Secrets Act
Televised Crimewave
Golden Silvers
Ben Kweller
Beth Jeans Houghton
Micachu And The Shapes
The Invisible
Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man.
It Hugs Back
Screaming Tea Party
Artefacts for Space Travel
Vivian Girls
The Pains Of Being Pure Of Heart
The Miserable Rich
Woodpigeon
Beast
A Grave With No Name
Yves Klein Blue
The John Steel Singers
Middle Class Rut
The Arkells
An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump
Fanzine
Cassie And The Casettes

Kasabian will headline one night of the event with more acts to be announced in the coming weeks.

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Album Of The Year #5 Johnny Foreigner- Waited Up Til It Was Light

LIVE REVIEW
I hated Johnny Foreigner. Really thought they were annoying, whiney and Los Campesinos rip offs. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, they are hardly U2. However as I write for Drowned In Sound they pretty much are U2- inside the cliques of DiS 'JoFo' are massive. They won the sites innaugral Pluto award (anti-Mercury prize) and boast an approval rating Obama would kill for. I just didn't get it. Some time in the Summer though, probably on one of many cross country train journeys, 'Waited Up Till Light' clicked. Not in a "Oh I get that now" but more of a "What was I thinking? This is incredible" way. The Birmingham trio's music is so energetic, angry, intelligent, unique and as many more superlatives as I can think of. Their tales of small town angst and romantic despair are set to a thrashing punk shriek brim full of anger and youthful nihilism. Had I had more time with it I think this may well have hit the #1 spot. A fantastic album.

'Eyes Wide Terrified'

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