Album Review: Jim Bob - "Pop Up Jim Bob"

 

As those who've been reading this webzine since the early days will know, I make no secret of the fact that Carter USM were a massively influential band on my music taste and the prospect of a new Jim Bob album to review has been something I've been looking forward to greatly since it came out a couple of months back while I've been working through the review backlog here.

Pop Up Jim Bob is, as the 30 second lead-off single 2020 WTF intimates, an increasingly despairing look at the state of the world this year. Jo's Got Papercuts is a tale of sheer frustration at the world around you while Kidstrike salutes the youth of today who seem to be more motivated to try and change the increasingly hopeless world around them than the older generation and the epic six minute spoken word Truce imagines a world where people stop arguing and just try to get on. Elsewhere, Jim Bob takes some well aimed potshots at the MAGA gun culture in the States (Ted Talks), bullies and climate change deniers (If It Ain't Broke) and especially keyboard warriors (Big Boy, Barry's On Safari, the excellent Prince In A Pauper's Grave style poison waltz of #thoughtsandprayers) while You're Cancelled And We're Done is an ode to throwing your hands up and going off to live in the woods at the sheer horror of modern life.

Pop Up might just be the closest solo Jim Bob has done thematically to the political anger of Carter and if you've not checked any of his stuff since his commercial heyday then it's a very good place to start (obviously afterwards, I thoroughly recommend that you go out and check out some of his less overtly political work as well). A real state of the nation address and a great testament to Jim's ability both as a songwriter and a lyricist, I get the feeling that this will definitely be up there when I come to do the inaugral Nite Songs Album of the Year awards in a month or so's time. Highly recommended.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 (9/10)