You know how you can mix up as many colours of poster paints as you like and it always ends up in a sludgy brown hue? Well, Everything is New is the sonic equivalent.
Unjustly mauled for his spritely, perky debut a couple of years ago, Jack has ditched the Shoreditch shorts and immersed himself in a world of music from tropicala to krautrock, afrobeat, reggaeton, Philly soul, gospel and southern-fried hip-hop. All fine and dandy.
Except that what emerges from the mincer is a series of sallow, ’80s-sounding pop dirges that flit from Simple Minds to Duran Duran, Japan and The Associates without ever alighting on any one of them long enough to get interesting.
The sole source of hope is the the album’s stand-out track Let’s All Die.
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