The music of John Grant has featured in both an episode of Girls and the film Weekend, the common thread of both stories being an intimate sexual encounter that affects both parties more than they had expected. There’s a passion and longing in Grant’s songs that make it perfect material for a heart newly a-fluttering and/or one on the verge of breaking.
Grant has a rich baritone voice that recalls Barry Manilow or Dead Can Dance’s Brendan Perry. While this voice remains a distinctive anchor, his music bears the influence of his collaborators. On his debut, 2010’s piano-led Queen Of Denmark, he immersed himself in Midlake’s pastoral mood. This time, he’s mixing things up from his new home in Iceland, matching his emotive ballads to the electronic pulses of his producer, Biggi Veria from Gus Gus. Meanwhile, Sinead O’Conner, who recently covered the title track of Grant’s previous album, contributes some beautiful, subtle backing vocals to four of Pale Green Ghost’s eleven songs.
With one foot in an ’80s-influenced electronica and another back in more familiar territory, the result is a somewhat uneven album. The one constant, other than that impeccable voice, is Grant’s dry humour, dubbing himself ‘the greatest mother-fucker that you’re ever going to meet”, chiding a nemesis for having “a black belt in BS” and lamenting “I should have practiced my scales and I should not be attracted to males.” The album suffers from having a couple of filler tracks in its second half, while a new-wave electro track sticks out like a sore thumb, and not in a good way. But when he gets it right, like on the atmospheric title track or the glacial ballad It Doesn’t Matter To Him, he floors you.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Best Track: It Doesn’t Matter To Him
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: i THE MAGNETIC FIELDS, How About I Be Me (And You Be You) SINEAD O’CONNER
In A Word: Sardonic
