ALBUM REVIEW: Jim Bob – Who Do We Hate Today (Cherry Red Records)
Almost a year to the day since his last album, the artist formerly known as Jim Bob from Carter USM is back with a new one.
Considering it was seven years between his previous two, we should consider ourselves fortunate indeed.
Jim Bob (aka Jim Morrison) was one half of late 80s/early 90s indie-dance-punk phenomenon Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine.
Their punk sensibilities and politically-aware lyrics made them one of the most successful acts of the late 80s/early 90s.
After turning away from music to become an author, he returned in 2020 with comeback album Pop Up Jim Bob (reviewed here).
National treasure
It reached No 26 in the UK Charts – his best placing since 1995 – but the good news for fans is that this follow-up is even better.
Recorded in South London with his band The Hoodrats during the pandemic, its 13 tracks in 37 minutes confirm his status as an oft-overlooked national treasure.
I rank him alongside the likes of Peter Perrett and Billy Bragg as a great singer-songwriter who, for whatever reason, has fallen off the mainstream’s radar. It’s their loss.
Let’s face it; for a songwriter who uses words to paint vivid pictures of modern life, there’s been plenty to inspire him in the last couple of years.
Take lead single The Summer Of No Touching, which casts its critical gaze on last year’s Covid-19-inspired lockdown, describing it as “like Christmas for conspiracy theorists”.
Climate change is the subject of The Earth Bleeds Out, and how ever-more-exotic holidays have somehow become more important than saving the planet.
Jim Bob’s at his best when painting portraits of the sort of characters who are all too recognisable, even if you wouldn’t necessarily want to meet them.
The subject of #prayfortony is one such subject, who “doesn’t suffer cunts…hates Black History Month…did Movember once…”
Karen (Is Thinking Of Changing Her Name) considers the effect on an ordinary citizen of her name becoming synonymous with angry, entitled middle-aged white women in a world of toxic social media.
Shona Is Dating A Drunk, Woman Hating Neanderthal Man hardly needs explaining, but contains some of the most razor-sharp lyrics on the album.
Our heroine is so besotted she “believes if anyone can change him, then she can”, even when “her friends don’t come round anymore, when he’s there because he’s so rude”.
Shona is a character we can all identify with, and perhaps even empathise with. But only she can help herself.
A Random Act is the most powerful song here, an unsettling six-minute epic describing a lone knifeman’s rampage through a city street and its tragic aftermath.
Jim Bob has his finger firmly on the pulse as he sings: “The scariest thing of all is there’s nothing you can do/Anything can happen and it can happen to you.”
Oddly, the most touching track is The Loneliest Elephant In The World, written from the viewpoint of a zoo animal who found and then lost the love of his life.
Our pachyderm ruminates on lonely nights, cruelty and neglect, saying: “Oh how I wish I could forget/But that’s not what my people do.”
Who Do We Hate Today is another tour de force from one of the most under-rated songwriters of these or any other times. 8/10.
- The album is available now from all good record stores on vinyl, CD and cassette, or directly from Cherry Red HERE.
If you buy any two or more physical formats directly from Cherry Red you can get a set of exclusive cover versions from Jim Bob to download.
- Jim Bob will head out on a Covid-delayed UK headline tour in November, performing songs from both new albums, plus some Carter classics.
