My Jerusalem - Gone For Good

Featuring contributions from members of such bands as The Polyphonic Spree and Great Northern, this Louisiana septet have created a head-turning debut record that doesn’t succumb to any ‘first album pitfalls’ that we can think of. My Jerusalem do not have any problems with: diversity, songwriting, consistency or any overbearing singles.

Indeed, probably the only shortcoming is the way ‘Gone For Good’ was introduced to the world. There is no shortage of genuinely brilliant songs here, and quite a few of them (we’re talking half the album) would have worked as the lead single. So why the hell did they go for ‘Love You When You Leave’? It’s not a bad song at all, but a short, mid-tempo, acoustic song doesn’t strike us as a good indication of what this lot sound like.

Had it been up to us, we would have gone with… well, actually, any of the first four tracks on the record, which constitute the best opening run of 2010 so far on an album that isn’t Frightened Rabbit’s ‘The Winter of Mixed Drinks’. Sure, ‘Valley Of Casualties’ may sound a little like U2 at times, but it’s the punchiest U2-esque song we’ve heard in about nineteen years. The colourful orchestral-pop duo of ‘Sweet Chariot’ and ‘Remember Everything’ help the album to hit its stride, before ‘Sleepwalking’ completes the quartet in superb fashion, a track worthy of anything on the new Arcade Fire record.

Of course, it would be difficult for an album like this to maintain that kind of quality throughout, and, even though it tries hard, ‘Gone For Good’ doesn’t scale those heights again. What we’re left with, though, is a collection of songs that would be pretty damn impressive by most bands’ standards. Behind the welcoming hooks of songs like the title track, the bar-room rock of ‘Shake The Devil’ and the swells of closer ‘Farewell’, there is a record that never seems to keep still.

There are more subdued moments too, of course. ‘Proposition’ slows things down considerably, but is still a relatively optimistic song. However, the same cannot be said of its companion, ‘Hit the Lights’, which is about as cheerful as a funeral march, shuffling despondently along for three minutes before transitioning into a coda that is devoid of any hope: ‘I know what it’s like to feel less than nothing’.

Things take a turn for the maudlin a couple of times on ‘Gone For Good’, but there are enough upbeat songs present to balance the books. With the band adamant that they will not stick to any one genre of music, it will be interesting (to say the least) to see where they go from here.