Posts Tagged ‘BillyJon’

The simplicity of one man (or woman, it is the 00s after all) and a guitar is a powerful thing.  There is nowhere to hide, no band to lose yourself in, no wall of noise to hide behind.  Just the songwriter and their songs, so better make it good.

 ‘The Darkness Of The Night’ by Swindon based  BillyJon is indeed a collection of five acoustic tracks, troubled, brooding and really rather good.

Emotionally it is fairly personal affair; matters of the heart both broken and full are dealt with beautifully and more importantly, genuinely.

‘Our Song’ is a perfect example of how to convey sentiment without the saccharine, no need for X-Factor style histrionics here, the chorus of ‘And the birds they sing no more, they’ve fall ill and lost their voice’ is heart-breaking in its poignancy.

There is slightly more hope in ‘Paper Cup’ rather than the love lost of the opening track; it feels like love on the rocks with a certain sense of uncertainty, our protagonist is smitten but is the recipient?

These two songs sum up why I like this EP so much, clearly these songs are about specific times in BillyJon’s life but there is room within the lyrics for it to resonate with everyone and space for the listener to weave their own memories into the fabric of the songs.

Vocally there are definite shades of Robert Smith, ‘Oh So Softly’ has a vaguely Dylan-esque ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ quality about it but there is a confidence to BillyJon’s writing that make these touching stones rather than leaning posts.

We live in a time where the bland, faceless banality of modern ‘pop’ has saturated the market but whilst there are artists like BillyJon around, genuine and affecting, we live in hope the bubble will burst and real music will once more get the recognition it deserves.

Jules says….

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