I was interviewing a band t’other day (you’ll find out-all-about as soon as I get around to writing it up), when something unfortunately distracting happened. A soundcheck got underway as the band, tucked into their dressing room, were getting chin-deep into one of my questions; instead of giving them my full attention, I was knocked sideways by a few bars of Johnny Flynn’s Kentucky Pill bellowed into the microphone, one hundred feet and several brick walls away. It would have been very unprofessional to interrupt my pontificating musicians with, “Sssh! Is that Kentucky-fucking-Pill?!” and a frenzied dash out into the main venue, but I wanted to. God, how I wanted to.
That I love Johnny Flynn like a 90s cartoon animator loves inexplicable muscles will come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever been within half of a mile of me. When I fall for a musician, I tend to shout about it. And when I fell for Johnny Flynn and that soft snarl of his, I got very, very loud. Deeper than Frightened Rabbit, darker than Stornoway, and smarter than Mumford and Sons; what you don’t get from Johnny Flynn isn’t worth having.
Been Listening is Master Flynn’s second full-length album. It follows 2008′s A Larum, which I only discovered in 2009, and promptly attempted to overdose on, to show repentance for my tardy ways. A Larum was a near-faultless collection of folky loveliness, skipping from quiet thrills to sweeping emotion on one clever melody after another. Been Listening is more of the same.
Now, should that sound sneakily deprecating, you’ll just have to blame your own wonky wee prejudices, for A Larum Mark II is no bad thing. Been Listening is a perfect sequel, exactly the kind of follow-up you’d get on your knees and yowl for after that first-album rush. It’s a continuation, not a rehash; it’s the gleefully melodic chronicle of an artist pressing on with the sound he loves and pushing up new peaks as he goes. You’ve got, yet again, the obscenely catchy single (Kentucky Pill), the lightheaded singalong (Agnes), the slow burner (Amazon Love), but there are new highs as well, like the harsh bluesy howl of … well, Howl, and something extremely special in the mournful anthem Barnacled Warship.
And then there’s Flynn himself, who weaves wordplay through tune with an instantly recognisable voice that can veer from boyish and soaring to a sort of ragged growl in the same whiplash quip. Also, he plays about seven hundred different instruments and I doubt there’s a woman alive who’d complain if they had to repopulate the planet with him; what’s not to envy? The Times have called him nu-folk’s poster boy to Laura Marling’s nu-folk poster girl, and sure enough, she duets with him on The Water, which strangely dilutes both their talents and ends up more an unwelcome interruption than anything life-affirming. But there’s much of that I can chalk down to the charisma of Flynn and the charm of Been Listening as a whole; I don’t want him to give way, not to Laura Marling, not to nobody.
Been Listening is released June 7th. Last one in has to relinquish their ears to the Robot Devil.
Your enthusiasm for good music is positively
infectious ; )
“what you don’t get from Johnny Flynn isn’t worth having.” Well put. I’ve seen some praise about him brought too far to extremes lately, but this comment is completely true.
I don’t know how it feels in context of the album (yet), but I do love The Water. For something so slow and quietly steady it sure grew on me quickly.
Best review of anything I’ve read in ages.
Wow! Thanks!
I don’t know what it is about The Water that disappointed me so. It’s a real groan moment to call it “a bit wet”, but there you go. I’m generally quite underwhelmed by La Marling, anyway.