THE JADED HEARTS CLUB - YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN HERE
This collection of musicians work incredibly together, and You’ve Always Been Here is a very clever way of bringing back old classics and putting a modern twist on them, all the while still leaving them completely identifiable.
The Jaded Hearts Club are a supergroup, comprising of Miles Kane (TLSP), Nic Cester (Jet), Matt Bellamy (Muse), Graham Coxon (Blur), Jamie Davis (Transcopic Records) and Sean Payne (The Zutons). The name evidently takes inspiration from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles which is, arguably, one of the most recognised album covers of all time.
Their debut album You’ve Always Been Here is an album of covers of classic 60s soul tunes. The album opens with ‘We’ll Meet Again’, sung by Bellamy which leads into their spin on ‘I’ll Be There’ by Four Tops. ‘Reach Out (I’ll Be There)’ is a perfect mix of rock and soul; never losing the original, vintage sound but adding guitar riffs and loud, distinct vocals blends so well together I think it might be my favourite on the album.
‘Nobody But Me’ was the first track the band released as a single, performed originally by The Isley Brothers. Kane’s typical vocals make him easily recognisable and the sound of backing singers really gives it that old school feel. Following this is ‘Long and Lonesome Road’ which is a song by Dutch rock band Shocking Blue. The vocals in the original and this cover sound strikingly similar, but JHC have morphed it so that it’s slightly heavier, with rough guitar riffs and added ‘woah’s’ and ‘owww’s’, reminiscent to that of The Rolling Stones.
Finishing off the album is ‘Fever’, a blues tune from the mid 50s by Eddie Cooley & The Dimples, written by Cooley and Otis Blackwell. This is one you click along with, the vocals are almost whispers and the music is stripped right back, down to a simple pluck of the strings. Bellamy is the perfect fit for their take on this song as his previous work shows, and it rounds off the album so, so well.
Initially I didn’t know what to expect from this album as I believed it was going to be completely new material but it’s blown me away. This collection of musicians work incredibly together, and You’ve Always Been Here is a very clever way of bringing back old classics and putting a modern twist on them, all the while still leaving them completely identifiable.
Elisha Cloughton
★★★★☆