Desperate Journalist - Grow Up

The Quietus

It’s been slightly more than two years since Desperate Journalist’s self-titled debut, and my haven’t they grown. It’s more of the same to be fair, though there’s an assuredness on Grow Up that comes with experience; an indelible imprint of a band not only making their mark, but also asserting their identity. The songs feel bigger, better, more expansive and fresher, while their collective deportment has something of a swagger about it.

What’s perhaps most remarkable is the fact that each player has a distinctive voice, and with the ear able to discern and separate the parts, it creates an eerie space in which the listener can move around in. Jo Bevan is winsome sometimes and downright spiteful at others – but her delivery is never anything less than emphatic, as one has come to expect from romantic indie pop’s newest poète maudit. Rob Hardy’s empyrean guitar licks seem to ricochet off the wings of angels, while Simon Drowner’s fuzzy and unfussy grooves lock in tightly with Caz Hellbent’s sturdy rhythm. The production, provided by the band and Keith TOTP, has done a fine job of accentuating their strengths, although you’d be hard-pressed to identify too many weaknesses.

If there is a criticism, and it’s a backhanded compliment (or maybe a front-handed insult), it’s the fact that they never soar on the rest of the album quite as majestically as they do on the first three tracks. Though – given that said tracks have been three of the best singles released since, well, their last three singles – it would be churlish to kick up too much of a fuss. ‘Hollow’ is an imperious opener, which juxtaposes the ambient groove of the verses with an almost hysterical chorus, with Bevan howling the titular word ever more frantically. In a strange way it nods to the repetition at the outset of Oasis’s What’s the Story (Morning Glory), though where they invoked Gary Glitter with the word ‘Hello’, perhaps Desperate Journalist are invoking Tim Burton with ‘Hollow’. It’s certainly goth enough.

‘Resolution’ is even more arresting, and if the charts mattered nowadays beyond being filled up with bland Suffolk singer songwriters with odious Care Bear tattoos, then this would surely make a dent in the top ten (in any sane world, the top 3). Preposterous though it might sound, ‘Resolution’ has the kind of anthemic indie theatrics that would make it the perfect goal montage music for Match of the Day (someone needs to have a word so they can buy their mums houses).

‘Be Kind’ also seems to be nodding - this time to Nirvana’s ‘All Apologies’ in the verses - with a chorus that demonstrates a musical cunning that’s all their own. It takes a certain amount of confidence to cling to the same chord for dear life, and by the time it resolves and the bridge arrives, your heart bursts into a pulpy mess. There’s a little bit of, dare I say it, Gene in there too, though Gene were at times majestic, and they share the same doomed ambition as Desperate Journalist.

The flipside to the wistfulness is Bevan’s withering putdowns. One minute she’s imploring you to be kind, the next she’s asking some poor darling ‘Why Are You So Boring?’ Meanwhile ‘Your Genius’ is about someone who’s clearly convinced of their own brilliance where perhaps nobody else is, and ‘Lacking In Love’ promises to give the poor protagonist “something to cry about”. Lyrically it’s maybe less abstract and more human than last time around, while the voice is truly something to behold these days. On ‘Purple’ Bevan’s vox captures some of the resonance and poise of Alison Moyet, and much of the expressiveness as well. And we can’t offer higher praise than that.

On ‘Purple’ an interesting thing happens too. At the end of the chorus, just for a moment, the band chime into the strangest of augmented chords. For that nanosecond they threaten to step into another musical world altogether, but then return to what they know they do so well. Grow Up is as perfect a record as they could have made right now, but perhaps that single strummed phrase is a portent that things could get weirder when they’re fully grown.

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Drowned In Sound 80

The point of this faintly depressing meander into the recesses of my ageing psyche (aside from cautioning you, dear reader, against letting yourself get old) is that I’ve realised that Desperate Journalist’s self-titled debut a couple of years ago was probably the last record by a band I didn’t know that I fell spectacularly for. Unsurprisingly, it was a feeling of familiarity which drew me in initially, with their dark melodrama reminding me of so many of my favourite bands - they’re very obviously a group who know their indie-rock history, and almost certainly have magnificent record collections. However, the thing which kept me captivated wasn’t this pleasant sense of kinship, it was the sheer power of their songs, underpinned by the emotive force of Jo Bevan’s vocal.

Of course, a new album by a band you like is ostensibly A Good Thing, but sometimes loving a particular record so intensely can prove counterproductive in trying to get your head round a follow-up. A big part of Desperate Journalist’s power was that it was so much more than the sum of its parts. The spell spun by the chime of the guitar, the rumble of the bass and the gloomy clouds of reverb created a wonderfully intense atmosphere which pervaded the music from start to finish. Like a great film, it felt like it a glimpse into a world similar to ours, only much more dramatic and profound.

Crucially, the sequel Grow Up takes you back to that very same place, but now the actors are better, the story more poignant, and the characters are more fleshed out, so it lures you further than ever before into its bewitching alternative reality.

The key musical components are all still very much present, but it feels like the power of Caz Hellbent’s drumming has been brought further to the forefront, giving songs like ‘Hollow’ an extra air of menace. Indeed, everything which made Grow Up’s predecessor sound good sounds that much better this time out. The riffs ring out with more clarity and direction, the bass prowls more moodily and more purposefully, and Bevan’s voice is again on wondrous form. She’s capable of conveying so much emotion with her delivery, and she does so absolutely beautifully here. Whether she’s snarling with pure spite as on ‘Why Are You So Boring?’ or sounding utterly lost on ‘Be Kind’, her authenticity is absolutely crucial to the identity of her band.

A few more years playing together has refined Desperate Journalist’s songwriting significantly. There’s more emotional and musical depth to the songs on Grow Up, the slow-dance of ‘Purple’ being probably the biggest example of this. Grow Up is a very ‘second album’ kind of title, and indeed Grow Up is a very ‘second album’ kind of record. It’s always gratifying to see a good band moving towards being a great one, and this feels like several steps in that direction. I guess there’s a lesson in there for the likes of me too - Getting older really shouldn’t mean closing your eyes and ears, because just imagine what you could be missing out on.