Jay Jay Pistolet – Happy Birthday You EP

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After hearing this you will not be surprised to discover that Charlie Fink was involved with the production. Anyone with their ears open this summer will instantly pin this EP to his Noah and The Whale sound, and you would be a little bit correct. There are certainly worse collaborators, with the same man responsible for production on Laura Marling‘s Mercury nominated album, but imitating another band so completely is a risky strategy; whilst reflected glory can be a useful way to start a career it is unlikely to last forever.

For now though what has been created is a short set of love songs with sweet young sentiments. The title track skiffles it’s way through, allowing the singer to show us what he can do with his quirky voice as he tells his girl just how darned special she deserves to be treated. ‘Bags of Gold’ begins sounding like Jay Jay’s going to get political (rhyming “shot” with “proletariat“) before escaping into wistful dreams of how to achieve his fortune. This fits much better, being lulled into activism with something as innocent sounding as this voice is hardly fair. You’d probably overthrow government with a teddy bear.

The record continues in the same vein, with some beautiful lines that everybody in love would wish to have written for their other: “Well I really miss the spring in my step/The one that I contracted from that bed in which we slept/When our hands first intertwined and our lips first met.” Thinking to write something like that is either complete heartbreak or an adoring mind, but being able to throw it away surreptitiously in the middle of a song without sounding embarrassingly quixotic is where his talent seems to lie.

Rumour on the internet is that Jay Jay Pistolet is the Justin referred to by Frank Turner as “the last great romantic poet”, he’s the only one among us who is ever going to make it,” and that’s good enough for me. If he can push beyond the lazy journalistic comparisons to other popular bands, he should do quite well for himself.