Grey Tickles, Black Pressure

Description

Its been the most spectacular of journeys, from a place in time when John Grant feared hed never make music again, to winning awards, accolades and Top 20 chart positions, collaborating with the likes of Sinead OConnor, Goldfrapp and Elton John, as well as a Best International Male Solo Artist nomination at the 2014 BRITS Awards.

Now comes Grants third album, the invitingly titled Grey Tickles, Black Pressure, a veritable tour-de-force that further refines and entwines his two principal strands of musical DNA, the sumptuous tempered ballad and the taut, fizzing electronic pop song. There are newer musical accomplishments across its panoply of towering sound, like the title tracks new steely demeanour, while the ominous drama of Black Blizzard echoes both John Carpenter and Bernard Black Devil Disco Club Fevres beautiful and icy synthscapes. The contagious, gleeful You And Him marries buzzing rock with a squelchy electronic undertow, while orchestral drama swathes the bad-dreamy Global Warming and the albums gorgeously aching widescreen finale Geraldine. John has released a NSFW (or at least not for the squeamish!) album trailer featuring the title track which can be viewed HERE.

Grey Tickles, Black Pressure was recorded in Dallas with producer John Congleton (St Vincent, Franz Ferdinand, Swans) coincidentally the same state of Texas where Grant nailed his 2010 solo debut Queen Of Denmark in the company of Dentons wondrous Midlake. After that landmark return, which MOJO made its album of 2010, 2013s Pale Green Ghosts was made in Icelandic capital Reykjavik (where Grant has lived ever since), which entered the UK Top 20 in its first week and ended up as Rough Trade Shops Album of the Year 2013, The Guardians No.2 and in MOJO and Uncuts Top Five). Such recognition, iced by years of sell-out shows across Europe and a recent US tour as special invited guest of the Pixies, should allow the notoriously self-critical and insecure Grant the passing thought that Grey Tickles, Black Pressure will deservedly cement his reputation as the most disarmingly honest, caustic, profound and funny diarist of the human condition in the persistently testing, even tragic, era that is the 21st century.

I do think the albums great, and Im really proud of it, he says. I wanted to get moodier and angrier on this record, but I probably had a lot more fun making it. He cites amazing session keyboardist Bobby Sparks, who really funked things up, as part of that fun; likewise a month of Dallas sunshine after a brutal dark winter in Iceland. And there was a lot of laughter.

That said, fun isnt the first ingredient youd expect when you know the roots of the album title. Grey tickles is the literal translation from Icelandic for mid-life crisis, while black pressure is the direct translation from Turkish for nightmare, Grant explains, an unusually gifted linguist (hes fluent in German, Russian and now tackling Icelandic).

Nevertheless, there are plenty of positive streaks in Grey Tickles, Black Pressure. Grant, for one, is in fabulous voice throughout and has moved on from the specific subject matter that shaped both previous albums (though the concept of love always figures into the mix). Disappointing featuring vocal guest Tracey Thorne is an exuberant tribute to new love, against which Grants favourite Saturday Night Live comediennes, Russian artists and ballet dancers with or without tights pale in comparison. The albums other two guests are vocalist Amanda Palmer and former Banshees drummer Budgie.

But the end result is indeed a moody, angry record, laced with levering humour and wounded pathos, yet as dark as Reykjavik in February. It starts and ends with spoken word snippets called, simply, Intro and Outro, both taken from the same Biblical quote (from 1 Corinthians 13) regarding the divinity of love that young John was taught in church. In between are 12 songs that document the reality of love on planet Earth, corrupted by pain, misunderstandings, jealousy, objectification and expectations, as Grant puts it.

The albums last two songs are among its finest. No More Tangles fights against co-dependency with narcissistic queers, he sings, through the metaphor of hair care products. Its about not apologizing for who you are and not putting up with unnecessary bullshit from people who do not care about you. But in Geraldine (as in the late Geraldine Paige, one of freakiest, strongest, coolest actresses Ive come across), Grants latest actor-inspired song is Grants chance to ask her if she too had to put up with this shit that life dishes out.

So Grant still manages to keep fighting the good fight, and writing his way out of trouble with another fantastic record. I want to continue to challenge myself, he says. To keep collaborating, to get the sound or the direction that will take me where I need to go. To keep taking the bull by the horns.