Johnny Foreigner have quite a reputation to live up to with their second LP ‘Grace And The Bigger Picture’, their 2009 debut album ‘Waited Up ‘Til It Was Light’ received critical acclaim not only from the press but from fans themselves.
The trio from Birmingham’s second album highlights their trials and tribulations of touring. Opening track ‘Choose Yr Side and Shut Up!’ kicks in straight off the bat and doesn’t let up for it’s 1:51 duration. Things continue in a similar vein throughout the next few song, short but sweet indie noise-pop songs that grab your short attention span and keep hold of it tightly until the final note.
Unfortunately however things seem to peter out a bit during the last couple of tracks at the end of the album. I’d find myself playing the album but not actually taking in the tracks. Thankfully this is probably just my short attention span rather than the album itself.
JoFo’s debut album ‘Waited Up’ was an amazing album, and still is. The album was extremely accessible but some said this meant it lacked depth and repeatability. ‘Grace’ combats this somewhat. The album is more of a grower and will take a good number of listens before you can take everything in (a number of listens I doubt I’m up to yet). This is both a good and bad thing, it means the LP offers more depth but for fans of JoFo it’s not something they’re used to.
All in all the band have neither moved onwards or upwards with ‘Grace And The Bigger Picture’. But why would they need to? Having found such a good cocktail of catchy choruses and even catchier beats there is no need to offer up anything other than what they do best.
And that’s what ‘Grace’ is, unadulterated fun which doesn’t require you to analyse the lyrics or listen for hours upon hours, it just requires you to jump around and be happy.
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Boring album by a boring band with boring haircuts and boring lyrics, who look and act boring and no doubt will be doing something boring right now.
Just managed to get round to reading this, but great review, I think you have giving a good idea of what this album is like and what to expect.
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