Jason McNiff "April Cruel"

Fledg'ling 2011

April might be a bastard but on this evidence, September's much nicer.

• Jason McNiff was awarded Americana UK's "Album of the Year" back in 2003 for his "Nobody's Son" album which still stands the test of time getting on for a decade on from its original release.  London based McNiff has had a somewhat sporadic output since, but then maybe he's been waiting to record this record, possibly the finest of his career and certainly the best since "Nobody's Son."

• McNiff said that he wanted to make an album which blended both European and Americana flavours (Europericana?), and by marrying a mainly americana sound to authentic stories of his own life experience (McNiff was born in Bradford to a Polish mother and Irish father), he succeeds in a way that doesn't sound forced or contrived.  The lovely, lovely (it's hard to describe how lovely the melody for the song is) "Students of Love" is a good example ("At Leeds we take the country road, I call my mother but there's no-one home, So we go to the woods, Where you make daisy chains and I think of my childhood")  with its retrospective look at the innocence of feeling (it also contains the amazing line "the dawn was happening quickly like a heart attack" which will change the way you wake up for several days after you first hear it).

  Even though the album is musically very much an americana record, it's not unadventurously so - the opening "Mountain Song" evokes a kind of African vista (basically without being unimaginative, it sounds like it might have come from "The Lion King" out-takes) with its creative harmonies, and "Bus of Tears" genuinely makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck the first time you hear it, the keyboard is so beautifully played and the female vocal so perfectly pitched.  The album throughout features members of the Italian band Modena City Ramblers and through their mutual admiration of the Italian leftie songwriter Fabrizio De Andre, it's a definite evolution, if not exactly a revolution, of McNiff's sound.

  Above all, McNiff writes songs which are genuinely memorable after a couple of listens, which move you as a listener but which never feel like hard work - more like a gorgeous dream you don't want to be woken from, even if the emotion of it all feels at times a little too close to home.  That connection is the hallmark of a good songwriter, and Jason McNiff isn't just a good songwriter, he's a genuinely great one.

  Catch Jason live at Americana 10 on November 12th in Liverpool.  Find out more here.