Highlights From the Most Compelling Pop-Rock Album of 2018
I find it remarkable. I put lots of my original songs on here, and nobody ever seems to listen. There’s an occasional remark about the lyrics, but never a peep about the actual music. Gone are the days when a fan was kind enough to comment, “You suck all your song sounds the same,” on one of my many Soundcloud pages.
Well, hope springs eternal. Here’s a review, and selected hightlights of the 2018 Isambard Jones & His Orchestra album Once We Had an Empire. We Now Have Diabetes.
From David McGee’s DEEP ROOTS:
The most unlikely and in many ways the most compelling pop-rock album of the year comes out of the blue, and from England, via the genius of rock journalist legend John Mendelssohn, who wrote the songs, plays most of the instruments and painstakingly produced Mr. Isambard Jones, whose tuneful voice is a cross between young David Bowie and that of a Jewish cantor, with a touch of Anthony Newley’s theatricality and the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band’s sense of the absurd in the mix.
A Beautiful Sight to Behold
Mendelssohn’s music has always shown his love and affinity for early British Invasion rock styles, with his lyrics evincing a more satirical bent but not at the expense of heartfelt sentiments and indelible images—think Tom Lehrer filtered through Ray Davies. Mendelssohn’s lyrical strengths remain in force on Mr. Jones’s debut; but though there are hints of the more raucous Mendelssohn in his keyboard work (the juxtaposition of gentle chimes with a twisted, processed keyboard solo in “A Beautiful Sight to Behold” will make you sit up and take notice), the overall feel of the project is more indebted to the British music hall style with a dash of Spike Jones for good measure. We find for instance, a restrained but rather savage kissoff in “From Atop the Shard,” in which Mr. Jones warbles, “you’ve been kidnapped by savage Mongol hordes/they’re scarce of course in Norway/but I can always hope/one like you will hang herself if given enough rope…”
Finding Christ
In “When Handsome Johnny Sails Away” we encounter a percolating modern-day take on Ricky Nelson’s “Traveling Man” in the form of an ode to the girls (or, in one memorable lyric, a ladyboy) awaiting our hero in various ports and towns the world over. Sample lyric: “My fraulein down in Dusseldorf’s a hundred percent Aryan/she raises birds of prey for fun, tho all they eat is carrion…” Had the Beatles ever gone Celtic, they might sound like what Messrs. Mendelssohn and Jones conjure on the lament “You Just Phone It In.” Listeners not too jaded to appreciate genuine affection should be moved by the tenderness in Mr. Jones’s voice when he sings, in “A Beautiful Sight to Behold,” “what I’d most like to see/is you in bed next to me/that, I tell you, would be a beautiful sight to behold”—the pause for “I tell you” is a heart-tugging literary touch of the first order.
When Handsome Johnny Sails Away
“I Shall Not Sink,” the bubbling arrangement of which bears a passing resemblance to the Pogues’ “Dirty Old Town” done at a slower tempo, is a catchy ditty of self-affirmation with an impossibly lush chorus announcing, “Though I can’t pretend I won’t last/I intend to be the last reprobate standing/I won’t inject, nor will I drink, I shall not sink!” As anyone who reads Mr. Mendelssohn’s Facebook postings knows, he’s on top of the day’s pressing issues (and a most vocal critic of the VSG [Very Stable Genius] masquerading as President of the United States).
I Shall Not Sink
He does not disappoint in that regard, providing Mr. Jones with the topical “The Lowly Cockroach,” therein observing, in part: “we scorn the lowly cockroach/who lives as God intended/our good luck will soon run out/our lease won’t be extended. The ocean’s full of toxic waste, the forests are denuded/if we imagine nothing’s wrong/we’re fatally deluded. We scorn the lowly cockroach/who lives as God intended…
Other joys abound on We Used To Have An Empire… including a couple of tunes carrying parental warnings. All evidence indicates Mr. Mendelssohn is a prolific writer of prose and songs and will continue to be heard from in various guises, but what the future holds for Isambard Jones is less clear. Having made a most favorable first impression with this collaboration, however, these two artists merit another go-‘round. — David McGee
When God Invented Fucking
Lead vocals: Isambard Jones. Guitars: Dazza du Toit. Everything Else: JM. All songs ©2018 by John Mendelsohn. Amaze me. Tell me you’d enjoy hearing the several songs not included here.