A record that examines modern life, a record that stands toe to toe, eye to eye with the underdog, the council estate, the joyriders and their burned out cars. A set of songs that studies in microcosm the day to day lives of the ordinary man, the trials and the tribulations are laid bare with an honesty that is so lacking in the glossy, glitzy world of fashion magazines. A record that tells the story of our lives, our modern lives, and comes to the irrefutable conclusion that modern life, as Blur once said, is rubbish, but equally so, that there is hope.

All that said, this isn’t a depressing record, it’s entertainingly honest and heartfelt, it exudes a bleakness that is tempered with a somewhat indefinable humour, very northern, very gritty, a kind of working mens club angle on This is Your Life. The sound of this record is pitched somewhere between folk, pop and rock, maybe, and dare I say it, it is sliced with nods to early period Dylan, and swathes of Richard Thompson at his politically cutting best. Incisive, heart on his sleeve lyrics are perfectly positioned alongside sometimes gently lilting and delicate, sometimes forceful and direct acoustic strums and thrums, the music fits the lyric in all instances, and that in essence denotes the presence of a perfect song writer, everything just comes together so well and makes for an effortless listen, this album just glides around the airwaves and slides neatly through your mind and body to leave you fully sated whilst at the same time has the edgy values that leave you slightly unnerved, almost awkward as you recognise yourself in so many of the little stories told.

The whole feel of the album is of a subtle, subversive, pseudo lo-fidelity slow ache, which is at all times searching, and more often than not finding, the glimmer of hope, the slightest suggestion of optimism and positivity, if you were stuck in a tunnel with John Parkes he’d be the one who would spot the light at the other end before anyone else even had a hope that it might be there. Indeed the album title Faithlessnessless indicates clearly a lack of faithlessness, and therefore, by default a prolifestation of hope, optimism, and all round good vibes.

Goodbye Ms. Jones opens the album with a rollicking, pulsing thump of a tune, interspersed with savage harmonica jabs, the good old fashioned steam train feel is right there throughout, it’s a strong rhythmic slap about the earlobes that sets the scene well and irrepressibly makes you sit up and take notice. Cigarettes swings to the opposite end of the musical spectrum, it’s a low, slow, lusciously melodious paean to love using the strange pull of the addiction to nicotine as a thrillingly subverse metaphor. It is a fine opening to an album and the quality does not dip, it is so often the case that records have a marked start, middle and end, whereas Faithlessnessless just keeps on going right the way through, it starts of great, remains great and ends great.

In the style of all the best song writers love and politics form the basis for the bulk of the songs herein. To Go Round falls into the latter of these territories, taking it’s cue form the likes of Billy Bragg it addresses the state of the nation with a sneer, and doesn’t shy away from awkward stances or from discussing subjects so often brushed under the carpet, it is a Daily Mail headline generator set to acoustic indie folk pop and ends with a heavy sigh come groan that just about sums up the whole thing perfectly. Hippy Father and Eighty Years Old address the aging process, and in particular the looking back at what you have left behind, be it a child who doesn’t grasp the nettle quite as keenly as you hoped that they would, or the regrets of the loves and losses left behind in the dusty bookshelves and shoe boxes full of teenage letters under the bed. This is all done with a glint in the eye, and a cheeky smile, and a realisation that no matter how poorly things may turn out, they are never that bad. It’s almost feelgood.

Move On is an utter heartbreaker, there is no other way to put it, and it shows the way to the Blunts of the hit parade. This is the way to write a song, and moreso, this is the way to perform a song, it’s simple, it’s stripped, it’s a raw cut laid bare for all to see and infect. The writer puts himself down for all to see and take a kick at, they do, and even though it hurts he knows it’s the right thing to do; an utter triumph in just two minutes. Politics is a reasonably self explanatory title, the song rips through memories of the times when “...industry meant something...” and “...there was only one tory party...” and there were “...politicians on the left...” – all long, lost distant memories so reluctant to fade. The subtle nod towards The Red Flag as the denouement is the twist of the knife in the back of all those “New” things that we are force fed these days, and a stubborn cry of “give us what we know and love, and what we want and need”, unfortunately though I know that this is a small voice (albeit with a big song) that will struggle to be heard above the braying voices in the Palace of Westminster.

Darkness is the last gentle lullaby before the closing tirade of You’ve Never Heard of Me, and it really is a tear jerker – a term that is all too often used in reference to the likes of Celine Dion, or that wretched Streisand woman when the wail on about some other nonsense or other with a furrowed brow and a sincere doe eyed stare before slipping into their fur coat and limo to head off to dinner with the Trumps. Darkness is a killer, it breaks your heart in just a fraction of the way that you know it’s hero had his heart broken, listen, you must, it is this years essential listening already. We could all learn a lot from these songs.

The closer You’ve Never Heard of Me is the only song of any bulk time-wise, it clocks in at over seven minutes whilst the rest of the set flirts around the two and a half minute mark. That said, the shorter songs don’t feel short, and this doesn’t feel dragged out. It is a fantastic end of the tour song which wraps the record up perfectly, with the last few verses serving as the album credits and thank you’s it provides a unique look at the album as an art form, and that is essentially what this is. Music meets art and comes off all the better, I only wish that this was the soundtrack to a film, it deserves to be, it’s a must.

“...and last of all to John, who did play me on the radio, over years and years of bands with variable material...”

"...So, while the record business, careers up it’s own arse, “hitting the demographic” – here is the antidote to the farce.."

More than a must.

You can download songs for free from John Parkes website: here, don’t let me down.

Words by Johnny Mac
 

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