Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
To trust someone to carry out your vision is perhaps the biggest compliment anyone can pay to an artist. It is the acknowledgement that what you hear in your head, what you have written down, perhaps sweated and toiled over and lost many a night’s sleep through, is being created in the way that you know it should be carried out; it is a privilege many arguably don’t quite understand in the modern age as they try to impose their own agenda into the art.
John Jenkins’ side project That Sure Thing’s New album, Honeymoon Hangover is one of prosperous joy because it frames that ideal thought perfectly and without any sense of being hampered by the allusion to which some albums recorded in a similar fashion are contained.
This though is no hangover from his own abundant work, it is not the sidelined effect in which Time is morally allowed to be filled, this is a work of art all of its own; a sojourn into the realms in which such coolness of spirits stands up on its own two feet and dares you to try and knock it down.
The album benefits greatly from the appearance of such noted Liverpool musicians and singers as Thom Morecroft, Tricia McTeague, Paul Richard Dunbar, Robert Vincent, Etienne Girard, Chris Howard, Phil Peers and Steve Thompson and yet never once does that personal stamp employed by the very giving John Jenkins ever falter, it never fails to be recognised for the strength of personality and honest train of thought that the man behind it all exudes with blossoming abundance.
Tracks such as Another Time Another Place with Thom Morecroft, the hauntingly beautiful It Tears Me Apart with Tricia McTeague, Sad and Lonely with Steve Thompson and I Won’t Let You Down with the exceptional Robert Vincent glory in the way that the album is put together and the stirring, ever growing feeling of satisfaction that comes through in the name of trust and conviction.
Honeymoon Hangover is a long way off; it will never truly appear whilst John Jenkins in all his different musical forms keeps producing subtle and beautiful works of art such as this brand new and inspiring album.
John Jenkins and That Sure Things’ Honeymoon Hangover is available to purchase from www.johnjenkinsmusic.com
Ian D. Hall