Johnny Foreigner - You Can Do Better

Johnny Foreigner
You Can Do Better
10 March 2014
Alcopop!

3.5 stars out of 5

 

Almost a decade after the UK indie rock explosion of the mid-oughts, Birmingham’s indie rock purists Johnny Foreigner drop their fourth LP, You Can Do Better. It’s full of sharp little ditties in the vein of Silent Alarm, with nary a keyboard nor an attempt to step outside of the genre in sight. And that’s perfectly fine, because it all works. Johnny Foreigner might be out of step with the world of music in 2014, but they don’t appear to give a rat’s ass about that, and neither do I, really.

“Shipping” and “Le Sigh” open the album with an urgent indie rock one-two punch. It’s loud guitar-based angst played with energy, not irony. “In Capitals” keeps things going, showcasing the male-female vocal interplay between guitarist Alexei Berrow and bassist Kelly Southern. “Riff Glitchard” sees things becoming a bit more introspective and disassembled, a bit reminiscent of The Dismemberment Plan, with Southern taking over lead vocals. The album climbs to its summit with “To the Death,” a near perfect indie rock tune with everything you could hope for from such a genre piece in three and a half minutes. The closing track, a somewhat epic and almost experimental piece titled “Devastator,” brings all of the album’s musical themes together (that is to say, all aspects of its one musical theme) in an engaging, sprawling, and complicated seven minutes.

As English indie rock records go, this is one of the better recent albums in that tradition. That it was recorded in 2013 instead of 2005 is a little disorienting, though if countless other acts can get away being stuck in the musical past, there’s no reason why Johnny Foreigner can’t as well. The difference is that with JF it’s not an ironic pose or a fashionable affectation, it’s the real deal, and their music benefits as a result.

reviewed by Richard Krueger