Johnny Foreigner - 'You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving With The Sky So Clear And Sea So Calm'

Birmingham's indie heroes (and heroine) Johnny Foreigner still feel like a fresh, new, young band, and it takes quite a bit of adjusting to realise that they are two albums and a host of EPs and singles into their career to date. Their well-founded reputation has been built on a staple diet of scuzzy, shouty indie-pop that has permeated the vast majority of their catalogue to date. This, however, is a formula that only stretches so far, and even by their second longplayer, 'Grace And The Bigger Picture', signs of death by repetition were seeping in.

'YTYSASSBYEWBWTATLCBPDWTSSCASSC' (for short)*, then, is the confident sound of a band seemingly tired of their comfort zone and looking for ways to branch out. As such, this EP release seems slightly disjointed, almost haphazard in the way it shifts from one track to the next. At 20 minutes and 6 songs, this is less of a cohesive record, more a brainstorming session. Fortunately for JoFo, just about everything they turn their hands to just, well, bloody works.

'The Wind And The Weathervanes' serves as an unusually restrained opener, hazy and laid back in an almost Pavement-like fashion, changing tack halfway to unleash a wave of expansive guitar lines more reminiscent of a post-rock outfit than the band we have come to know and love. That string sounds appear over the coda serve as a further reminder that this is a new-look, more grown up band we are witnessing before our eyes and our ears.

Well, almost. Those strings fade out into 'Who Needs Comment Boxes When You've Got Knives', a determinedly out and out punk effort, certainly heavier than anything that they have made previously. It is a blistering and effective run through heavy chords and simple fast-paced drumming, backed by the familiar vocal interplay between Alexei and Kelly. Two tracks in and still no new direction found and stuck to. Where to next? On the second part of 'Elegy For Post-Teenage Living Parts One And Two', they turn to making skittish electro-pop, with Alexei monologuing over a synth bassline and programmed beats vaguely recalling early hit 'Salt, Pepa and Spinderella'.

And still they are not finished yet. 'Robert Scargill Takes The Prize' sees the band at their most tender, most heartfelt (a title it will hold for precisely two songs' time), a fragile boy/girl duet over plucked acoustic guitars and gentle keys turn proceedings towards folktronica for a moment. Christ, this band really can do anything. A neat touch is the false ending to this song, giving a few extra seconds of outro where many would just have gone 'enough'. By the time 'Harriet, By Proxy' arrives, it is almost familiarly unfamiliar, probably the only track here that could slip relatively unnoticed into either of their first two albums and yet in the context of this record something different again.

'Harriet...' decent enough though it is, almost serves as a pause before delivering something special for the closing track entitled, simply, 'Yr Loved'. Another slow-burning gem, beautiful both musically and lyrically and glittering with hope, this song confirms the new status of Johnny Foreigner. Forget the genre, style or direction. This band is life-affirming, and this EP is something to be savoured.






*I wonder how many reviews in the blogosphere will repeat this gag, but no matter.