Album Review: Jesse Malin - "Sad And Beautiful World"

 

It's safe to say that this new album from Jesse Malin has been a long time in the making. Although it's only two years since his previous effort, Sunset Kids (an album which I'll be honest and say I was a bit underwhelmed by), we've already had three singles from it over the past 12 months (it's been a gradual work in progress during the lockdown), all of which have been good stuff so I was pretty keen to hear what the rest of the 15 tracks on here sounded like.

Sad And Beautiful World is an album split into two parts with the first side showing off Malin's more reflective side. Similar to Sunset Kids, this part of the album is a very downbeat and mournful one as evidenced by the gentle opener Greener Pastures but if that album felt as though it was lacking much of a kick - the fact that Before You Go picks up the pace nicely proves that at least there's a bit more energy about this effort. State Of The Art is even better with Jesse urging the subject of the song to keep their head up in the face of adversity to create a good mellow but uplifting call to arms.

Thereafter, side one goes into more of the same quiet and reflective style as Sunset Kids did but somehow it doesn't seem quite as lumpen as that album did when I listened to it two years ago - put it down to there being a lockdown in between albums which I think kind of forced most of us to sit back and reflect a bit but the likes of the yearning Lost Forever and a cover of Tom Petty's Crawling Back To You sound pretty good (to be fair, Dance On My Grave definitely has a hint of Petty about it as well which is no bad thing) - it's actually made me want to revisit Sunset Kids to see if time's been a bit kinder to it than I remember.

The second part of the album is described by Jesse as being his more radical songs and it kicks off with a good one two three of former singles in the Lou Reed-esque Backstabbers, the lurching seasick The Way We Used To Roll and Malin's vibrant tribute to the former Chelsea Smiles frontman Todd Youth. Other highlights include the new wave-inspired A Little Death (reminiscent of Talking Heads in a good way, there's a bit of an echo of Bowie's Fashion in there as well) and the bluesy strut of Dance With The System.

At fifteen tracks and over an hour, this is a very long album to get through in one sitting but it's worth the perseverance as you'll notice little new things with every listen. Certainly Malin has done well with this one and it proves he's very much still got it as a songwriter and tunesmith. Good stuff.

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