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Johnny Foreigner Album Release

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Hey you! Yeah, you! I know it’s raining and horrid but I think you should get up and come join this party over here. You what? Johnny Foreigner have, like, finally completed their debut album proper, that’s why! Yeah, that’s got you dancing, hasn’t it? And so it should.

The buzz around this no nonsense Birmingham three piece has been so loud of late a beekeeper would have complained about it. And what’s more, unlike with many flash in the pan bands, this buzz has actually lasted

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Johnny Foreigner - "CranesandCranes andCranes and Cranes" [Play]

for ages, which suggests the gang might be on to something with this thrilling back to basics, witty art rock of theirs. Sure, the sustained interest was helped by the mini album / EP-thing they set out in to the wild (called ‘Arcs Across The City’ – love it) a while back, a fine record which whetted appetites just nicely, but the general consensus is that great though that was, it just wasn’t enough. No siree. The public needed something meatier to stick their teeth in to, and with this record, that’s what Johnny Foreigner serve up, at last.

The album is called ‘Waited Up Til It Was Light’ (sounds like my weekend, then), and though it features a similar visual aesthetic to all previous JF releases (don’t you just love it when a band has a unifying visual theme?

Heck, it worked for everyone on 4ADeh?) there’s something of a progression that’s been undertaken in between that mini album and this full length beast that the similarity in artwork doesn’t let on. Loose ends have been tidied up, loud bits are louder, quiet bits are quieter, songs are stronger, their effect on your mindset lasts longer. It’s a corker.

"Waited up 'til It Was Light" is released on Monday 2nd June

A particular highlight arrives with ‘Cranes and Cranes and Cranes and Cranes’, its over the top title typical of the kind of humour Johnny Foreigner get a giggle out of. It’s certainly clever, a sly look at the regeneration of their home town Birmingham with its tongue firmly in cheek (“Why’d you wanna live here if there’s nothing but housing?”, they sing cuttingly, wryly, brilliantly even), but it’s also a complete hoot. They like repetition, and use it well both to title music and in the way the music itself sounds – keep at something until it’s stuck in your head, then lock the door to that skull of yours and swallow the key. But we all know that repitition’s boring if the people banging away at it don’t sound like they’re playing for the sake of their lives, and thankfully, here we have a band who are definitely, inarguably, ruddy certainly having all the fun in the world. In fact, I wish they’d stop hogging all the fun and share a little of it with the rest of us. What’s that? They have? By releasing this album? Ah, I see. I’d better turn it up then and stop moaning.