JACK PENATE'S 'Matinee' did very well for a debut in the precarious modern day industry. It went gold and gave him a popular Top 10 hit in the shape of 'Torn On The Platform'. It also proved that there was certainly talent to back up the hyperbole that surrounded its' release.
However, 'Matinee' also threatened to paint our Jack into the corner of his nicely-appointed indie bedroom. He seemed like an all too-nice nice South London lad you could take to the vicar's for cucumber sarnies of a Saturday afternoon before he nipped home to worship at his shrine devoted to The Smiths and The Housemartins.
Thus, this writer had expected more of the same when JP's recent single 'Tonight's Today' landed on his doormat. He certainly hadn't expected sleek, hand-tooled House-y grooves and a let's-party-all-night lyric which suggested Penate was more at home in Manumission than Mortlake these days.
JP'S highly-anticipated second album 'Everything Is New' proves there's a lot more where that progressive missive came from. It arrives with a lengthy essay of a press release explaining how Jack hooked up with wunderkind producer Paul Epworth and a mutual love for everything from Krautrock to Brazilian rhythms and even New Orleans funeral bands (bear with me) resulted in a much-needed musical rites of passage for Penate.
And it's all true. Sure, Jack's plaintive, South London tones remain, as do some niggly, textural guitar parts, but heady grooves, exotic rhythms, strings, unlikely instruments and Soul writ large pervade. 'Everything Is New' proves to be a case of young Jack Penate grasping the nettle and moving on. Quite thrillingly, for the most part.
The tingly guitars and big, Gospel-influenced backing vocals of opener 'Pull My Heart Away' point us in the right direction, but it's the dramatically celebratory likes of songs like 'So Near' and the new single 'Be The One' which really get under your skin. The latter is especially arresting, pitting Jack's more familiar lovelorn lyrical approach (“I'll fight for any cause/ fight for you in any wars”) with a terrific hook and great, New Order-style melodica.
Elsewhere, those Latin tinges I was hinting at are given full rein on both the title track and the explosive 'Give Yourself Away', where a massive Samba-style beat, joyful vocals and a ridiculously OTT guitar solo join forces to simply bludgeon you into submission. 'Every Glance', though, is probably the key track. Melancholic and serious with a distinctly Krautrock leaning, it finds Jack laying his new raison d'etre on the line (“take your hands from my shoulders and let me stand/ I've been trying my hardest to be a man”) and comes with a real sting in its' tail.
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As with 'Matinee', Jack's unlikely obsession with death has the final word. Unlike the plaintive 'When We Die', though, he does it in style this time round. With its' angular bass lines, falsetto vocals and bizarrely catchy chorus line (“out of the womb and into the tomb”), 'Let's All Die' is rather like a cut-price Sarf London equivalent of a N'Awlins funeral march (see, I told you to bear with me) and works far better than it should by rights. It's followed by a 'sister' piece of sorts in 'Body Down', wherein funeral etiquette is observed (“you're gonna go soon, go down the parlour/ pick you up and put you in a shirt and collar...drive you down the road and lay your body down”) in a more sombre and orthodox fashion. There again, he still finds room for an a capella bit and a mad final crescendo which leaves you confused but strangely fulfilled.
Jack Penate's second album, then, has all the hallmarks of a critic divider. It will most probably alienate at least a good faction of those who lapped up his traditional guitar pop approach and it's certainly the kind of record which relishes leaps of faith and damns the torpedoes. There again, he has called it 'Everything Is New' and he's overhauled his sound accordingly. He's done enough to get my tick at the polling booth.
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