JJ72 preview disc for moshing fans

JJ72 have always done things their own way and playing a smaller gig to showcase the new album, ‘I To Sky’, than they did to debut their maiden waxing, shouldn’t be a surprise. Back in 2K they booked the punk ‘temple’, 100 Club and it was a sweaty, angst-fuelled and intense affair; this time it is a smaller, not so hot and intimately different.

Coming on alone on stage for a solo spot, Mark Greaney, delivers the opening song of the new album, ‘Nameless’, in its splendour of simple union of piano-and-voice; quite beautilicious. The band joins him – Hillary Woods on bass and Feargal Matthews on drums – for the fuller and more uplifting ‘Formulae’, that is also the first extraction for a single. The new positivism, as claimed by singer/guitarist, is also expressed in a white shirt instead of all-black attire of the past.

Leaving behind melancho-pop and angst-laden world of the debut, it is still a rather serious proposition, moved from the debut to become deeper, more distinctive, more mature, more assertive… Great songwriting of Greaney is also augmented by a vocal style that hardly has a parallel in the annals: his vocal is high, it is a tenor-bordering-contralto, and it has been the biggest issue to their general acceptance. (Girl? Boy? If singer’s delivery had been of lesser ambiguity they would have sold half-a-dozen times more than the ½ million of the debut.)

Still, that’s never been their agenda but music, quality tunes for the (discerning) masses. JJ72 are also anti-image and lo-PR (low publicity): they’ve employed an extra guitarist/keyboardist to help out live on the expending sound but the guy looks like what he is – a session muso. He is totally outta place being a decade older than the rest but that only confirms the crux of the creative principles here. You have impression that angels could have hung in the wings, if there had been any room. Still, that would have distracted Greaney as a pocket of moshing fans just under his mike.

Tonight’s set is the new album and few of the past hits: ‘Oxygen’ and ‘October Swimmer’ get rousing reception but ‘Snow’ is omitted. With precious little talk from the stage, after concluding with elegiac ‘Oiche Mhaith’, there was no encore, as per usual. Having always applauded such anti-cliché stand, I do it even harder now. JJ72 are different on many an account and that’s more than welcome during the current prêt á pop era.

Heaven appears nearer, richly quieter and conducive to contended drive après show.

Tour dates:

07 October - UEA, Norwich (01603 508 050)
08 October - De Montford Uni, Leicester (0115 912 9000)
10 October - Foundry, Sheffield (0114 222 8777)
11 October - University, Cardiff (029 2023 0130)
13 October - Wulfrun, Wolverhampton (01902 552 121)
14 October - Metropolitan Uni, Leeds (0113 244 4600)
15 October - University, Liverpool (0151 256 5555)
17 October - University, Newcastle (0191 261 2606)
18 October - Barrowlands, Glasgow (0141 339 8383)
19 October - Academy, Manchester (0161 832 1111)
21 October - Academy, Bristol (0870 771 2000)
22 October - Pyramid, Portsmouth (023 9235 8608)
24 October - Forum, London (020 7344 4444)
27 October - Sugarhouse, Lancaster (0115 912 9000)
28 October - Ulster Hall, Belfast (048 9032 9685)
29 October - Leisure Land, Galway
31 October - Savoy, Cork
01 November - Olympia, Dublin