Many Happy Returns, Beans on Toast! Beans continues his tradition of releasing an album every birthday. This year’s model, Kill Them With Kindness, is the usual mix of domesticity and polemic but, perhaps, it’s his hardest-hitting yet…
Release Date: 1st December 2025
Label: BOTMusic
Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital
QUESTIONS THAT DEMAND ANSWERS
Many Happy Returns, Beans on Toast! The man who has, since 2009, been celebrating his birthday with an album release is back once again. Kill Them With Kindness is Beans on Toast album #19.
Just in case you’ve been living on the moon for the past 16 years, let’s recap. Beans on Toast is the public persona of Essex Troubadour, Jay McAllister. His stock-in-trade is songs that both entertain and make you think. Covering subjects as diverse – yet thoroughly complementary – as family life, the state of the world and the incompetence, self-interest and dodgy ethics of politicians of all persuasions, Beans asks questions that demand answers. And he does so with a generous dollop of often self-effacing humour.
INTRODUCING THE BAND…
For his last album, 2024’s Wild Goose Chasers, Beans on Toast relied solely upon the piano accompaniment of his mate, Matt Millership, to help him make his thought-provoking points. This time around, he’s taken a different tack. For Kill With Kindness, he’s joined by the band – Abbi Phillips on drums, Bassie Gracie on bass, King Killership (Matt in a flimsy disguise) on keys, Memphis Gerald on guitar and Ruth Lyon on fiddle – that accompany him on the larger shows that Beans plays up and down the country.
“We’ve done a few tours together,” explains Beans, “but this was our first venture into a studio. Each [member] of [this band] is amazing and together… well – I’m proper chuffed with how it sounds. This album is a bit of a juxtaposition, as is the title. There are songs that deal with the current state of the world – wars, manic leaders, the rise of AI and the fall of the establishment. Then, there are songs about trees, late nights in music venues, art, love, and my new cat. As usual, it’s a time to stamp my thoughts and feelings from the past year on planet Earth.”
GOOD ADVICE
And stamp those thoughts and feelings is exactly what Beans on Toast does, on Kill Them With Kindness. And – it might be just me, but I suspect not – this time around, the stamping is being done somewhat more forcibly than ever. But, then, perhaps the sh*t we’re in is deeper than ever, so the extra force is only to be expected…
With opening track, On the Great North Road, Beans celebrates his life on the road, the joy of taking music to people and encourages all of us to create art, as an antidote to the madness that we’re faced with. To a pleasant bluegrass tune, illuminated by some fine fiddling from Ruth, Beans makes his point: “If the world around you is falling apart, and you feel a bit lost on this planet of ours, what are you going to do, but make some art?” That’s good advice, I reckon.
SOD ‘EM ALL!
The state that we’ve allowed our world to fall into, and the apathy of those happy to watch devastating events on their phones without considering intervention come under Beans on Toast scrutiny in the hard-hitting God’s Children and Robots. The situation in the Middle East, connivance between super-powers, AI, mass displacement of people and climate change (“…out of fashion – gets in the way of consumption”) all get a mention as Beans says, in three short minutes, what many struggle to articulate. As he rightly concludes: “What will our children say about the state of the world today?”
A shuffling rockabilly drumbeat sets the pace for Comfortable in the Counterculture, one of Beans on Toast’s great “Sod ‘em all” songs. With lines like: “They got the vote, they got the mandate – by all accounts, this is what the people wanted. But you won’t see me roll-over; I’ll get comfortable in the counterculture,” Beans takes a powerful swipe at Trump, Musk and their ilk. And he shows that he’s willing to dig in for the long haul, when he says: “When it all falls apart, I’ll get comfort in the arts.”
SHOW ME THE FAIRIES!
The paradoxes that surround us, including meat without animals, booze without alcohol and sex without connection, provide the starting point for the cynical Pelican Crossing. Beans spits out his lyrics – “We’re all connected and it makes us disconnected,” before sadly concluding: “…still we’re divided.”
“I never wanted to be anti-anything,” declares Beans, in the opening lines of the thought-provoking The Fall of the Establishment. His lyrics recognize that whatever was formerly recognized as ‘the establishment’ is no longer with us but, unfortunately, it’s in the process of being replaced by something far worse. We may have of all expected – and hoped for – “…a world built on kindness,” but those hopes are dismissed, the new order, as “fairyland.” However, as Beans says: “Show me the fairies, coz you lot are f*ckin’ scary!” Quite.
DAMN THAT TEQUILLA!
It’s not all vitriol and desperation though. Smooth pop provides the backing for the wonderful The Glastonbury Oak, the album’s lead single. Here, Beans turns his attention to the the more placid aspects of life – caring for trees, enjoying the harmony of festivals and, his old favourite, savouring the welcome of music venues. And the everlasting joy of music provides the theme for the excellent A Real Rock ‘n’ Roller. The song is Beans’ tribute to Loraine Burgon, former partner of Ten Years After guitarist, Alvin Lee. Beans tracks Loraine’s involvement with Alvin’s various bands, from Nottingham Palais, via London and San Francisco, to Woodstock. “She was in love with the music,” says Beans and it seems that she enjoyed every moment.
Next, Beans turns his attention to the over-indulgence that often accompanies a musician’s lifestyle, first with the hilarious Big Night Out in Shrewsbury – another enjoyable bluegrass number – and then with the jazzy – and equally amusing – That’s Why I don’t Drink Tequilla Anymore. Waking up naked on a kitchen floor, being unable to walk or speak, memory loss and becoming irrationally argumentative are just a few of the symptoms that prompted Beans to swear off Tequilla. But did he really?
THE CAT TAKES OVER…
Beans suggests that Taylor Swift and – by extension – many other musicians have the required skillset for political leadership in Taylor Swift for President. He makes a strong point, I have to say, and he expresses it in a short, sharp blast of punk. And the payoff line? “She’s even got a private jet – she don’t need Airforce 1. Donald Trump can keep that, and fly into the sun!” If only…
I’d never had Beans on Toast down as a cat lover, particularly, but he is – and I’m so pleased to hear it. He starts to show the softer, family-focused side of his personality with the delightful Our Cat, a song that begins with the soft sound of his cat’s purr, before a shuffling harmonica takes over. Beans recalls how he’d never wanted a pet and had offered excuses such as his wife’s allergies and the burden of care to try and deter his daughter’s desire for a cat. The excuses were in vain, a cat was acquired and, unsurprisingly, became the pride and focus of family life. I could have told him so!
DOMESTIC BLISS
And the theme of domestic bliss continues for Happy Birthday Baby, in which, with lines like: “We’ve been collecting milestones together,” Beans expresses his sincere affection to his partner. And, as he lists the things that, as a couple, they’ve achieved together, the cat gets another mention…
Closing track, Magicians and Outlaws, takes everything back to where we started, with another celebration of the exhilaration that playing music around the world can bring. And, it does so, despite the chaos that continues all around us. Beans on Toast has done it again; happy birthday, and may there be many, many more.
BEANS ON TOAST – ON TOUR
And you’ll be able to hear the songs of Kill Them With Kindness and much more first hand, when Beans on Toast takes his band on tour during March 2026. They’ll be playing shows at the following venues – why not pop along?
March
4 SHEFFIELD – Sidney & Matilda
5 NEWCASTLE – The Cluny
6 GLASGOW – Stereo
7 LEEDS – Brudenell Social Club
11 BIRMINGHAM – Hare & Hounds
12 BRISTOL – The Fleece
13 CARDIFF – Clwb Ifor Bach
14 MANCHESTER – Band on the Wall
18 EXETER – Phoenix
19 SOUTHAMPTON – The Brook
20 BRIGHTON – Concorde 2
Relive summer memories – watch the official video to The Glastonbury Oak – the album’s lead single – below:
Beans On Toast: Website
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