Birmingham indie-rock heroes Johnny Foreigner signal their return with a vibrant taster of things yet to come.
Release Date: 12th June 2024
Label: Alcopop! Records
Formats: Vinyl / Digital
They’ve been away for an awful long time; but they promised they’d be back and, now, here they are.
We haven’t heard from Birmingham indie-rock heroes, Johnny Foreigner, for what seems like an eternity. Things went quiet after their sixth album, Mono No More, hit the racks back in 2016, but the band never actually broke up. There are whispers in the undergrowth that album #7, tentatively entitled How to Be Yourself, has been finished and is being prepared for release later this year and, as a taster, a companion, an overture – choose your preferred description – to the new album, the band have slipped out a nine-track EP – The Sky And Sea Were Part Of Me, Or I Was Part Of Them. It’s a title that would even give 1968 Marc Bolan a run for his money in the sesquipedality stakes, and it’s certain to arouse curiosity in any idle browser – and that’s good, because there’s a lot within The Sky and Sea… to reward such curiosity.
On the evidence presented on The Sky And Sea…, it seems that the lengthy hiatus has done Johnny Foreigner – Alexei Barrow (guitar & vocals), Kelly Parker (bass & vocals), Junior Elvis Washington Laidley (drums & backing vocals) and Lewes Herriot (guitar & backing vocals) – a lot of good. They sound ripe and fresh and ready for action and there’s an amazing wealth of varied material for any lapsed fans or curious investigators to immerse themselves in. If The Sky And Sea… is a foretaste of the promised album, we’ve got a treat in store.
The band are delighted to be back and I make no apologies for reproducing their recent statement, announcing their return – and their forthcoming album – in full:
Feels like a huge privilege to release a loud righteous rock record about finding love and joy in the universe at a point where such things are in such universal short supply. This release is 28 months past deadline; our timing has always sucked. But honestly we’ve had little choice; How to be Hopeful is a pure product of chaos magic. It compelled us to be made, to harness returning ripples of stones long since thrown. It felt way too significant, too personal, too full of moments worth savouring and patterns playing out, to rush. Also, we are old and have real jobs now.
It’s actually 2 matched parallel soundtracks, 1 per side, for a 12 month period where the worst, then the weirdest, then the best possible things happened. Same series of events, different ripples, chaos and consequence and everything connected This is our celebration record, our fell-in-love-and-stopped-worrying album, the glowing cathartic coda that we couldn’t help but channel. The least Johnny Foreigner of albums; nearly 3 years of obsessive planning and constructing, executive produced by 2007 anti-nostalgia us, and 2016 us who stopped being a band when we ran out of things worth singing about.
Thru one of many strings of strange coincidence (magic) we were able to utilise our absolute -DREAM TEAM- of present day humans; Dominique James recorded at JT Soars, Bob Cooper produced and Machine mastered. Of course, this is an Alcopop! record, cosigned by our Japanese label Shore&Woods. じゃあ、またね !
Release details to follow in time, but for now please meet “the sky and sea were part of me or I was part of them”; an introductory compilation comprising of 2 songs from the album proper, 3 exclusives produced by Evan Bernard, and assorted ancillary materiel / haunted piano.
Those two album songs are “What The Alexei” which is both our first actual love song and a potentially libelous homage to the best sad single indieboy song that raised us, and “Orc Damage”, a grim recounting of corporate greed, collateral damage and the collapsing end of an era.
Bedazzled, not blunted.
The EP kicks off with a short – 46-second – piano recital, blessed with the title (a million different galaxies). As a preparation for the aural onslaught to come, it’s deceptive, that’s for sure, and the heavy metal thrash of What the Alexei almost literally throws any unsuspecting listeners up against the wall. It’s a manic, frantic rap, crammed with observational lyrics that, perhaps, owe a line of lineage – if not a debt – to Beefheart’s The Blimp. And, if anything, the pace is ramped up still further for All Of The Colours, an uncompromising 90-second burst of hyper-speed punk. The song has a great opening line: “There’s a gap in the gatefold sleeve where they hide those dreams, so they can’t be seen.” I’m not sure what they’re getting at but, by heck, it’s refreshing!
The lyrics are equally cryptic in the bright, poppy, Exhibit #1: This Automated Age, a particular highlight of the collection. Jangly guitars, throbbing bass and crisp drums give the track a brought-into-2024 Stone Roses feel and the vocoded vocals deliver lyrics that are packed with venom.
Even on an album that isn’t short of full force thrash, If You Ain’t At The Table, Yr On The Menu stands out as three minutes of pure madness, and the lyrics – “And if some total stranger’s trauma helps legitimize my drama, well I’d call that civic karma,” for example – are excellent. And, if the sheer energy of If You Ain’t at the Table… proves to be too much for your own delicate disposition, then Johnny Foreigner have thoughtfully provided a bit of recovery time with (speak of it curse it) – the second of the album’s three piano recital interludes.
The dramatic, slow-building intro to Orc Damage yields to a tight, punchy and gloriously heavy theme. Once again, the lyrics – “Let’s deal some damage, let’s seed some panic, let’s split some families up” – pull no punches and the rocky backing matches the sentiment perfectly. The urgency that pervades The Sky And Sea… isn’t quite ubiquitous but the acoustic guitars that set the mood for All the Chords come as a surprise, nonetheless. The song becomes almost anthemic as the band break into the “I learnt to smile back/ Thanks I hate that” refrain and the combination of relaxing acoustic guitar and galloping drums with the “Expository Voicemail” monologue that closes the track amounts to an experience that is both strange, and strangely alluring. We’re nearly over, but not quite. There’s a final short piano figure to close the album, to leave us all pondering over what we’ve just heard and, perhaps, to leave us in eager anticipation for the arrival of How To Be Hopeful. Bring it on.
Listen to Orc Damage – a track from the EP – here:
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