Jack Penate: Everything Is New

Hello again Mr Penate, what have you got in store for us this time around?

Another batch of uninspired tracks meticulously crafted to appeal to the broadest demographic imaginable? Oh wow, that's what we always wanted!.

In his defence, he has matured an immeasurable amount since his début record and we have to give kudos when they're deserved - it's in the job description -  which they most definitely are here. The music is still one-hundred-percent forgettable indie-pop at its most simple but there's a new sense of age about Penate as well as his vocal chords. He's still the same old annoying, flannel T-shirt wearing Londoner that he once was but he seems to have realised just how terrible his previous material was.

Intro track Pull My Heart Away is far and away the most polished track on the record and dumbfounded us on the initial listen. It's actually...okay? Not in the sense that good music is okay but in the sense that, well, we were expecting to drop-kick our computers the moment the CD fired up so you can consider it a positive that nothings broken here at SG (yet). It's immediately easier to listen to than anything from the début and it has a genuinely interesting back rhythm that welcomes the summer festival season nicely. While nothing to write, e-mail or text home about, it raises intrigue as to the direction the man-child has decided to head.

There are choruses to come which will cause spates of anger and there are lyrics which will make your entire body cringe (excerpt from Be The One; "I knew you could, be the one, i knew you should, be the one, i knew you could, be the one", repeat for each chorus until mind has melted) and there's no getting over the fact that his talents are both minimal and designed specifically for the public majority. If your tastes branch even slightly into heavier territory you might find this web-page particularly useful and informative.

In many ways, Everything Is New is a Polaroid snap-shot of today's pop scene and its embracing of young artists who are ever-ready to produce a thousand radio-friendly indie hits time-and-time-again. He's got the dress-sense to pose for Topman, the voice of a man plucked straight from the middle of our City and his music has the ability make a whole bar or club sing along so why on Earth wouldn't it sell by the bucket-load? He's done a great job of creating a record fit for the masses and ready to be played at every Uni-bar in town and if that's your preference in music  then we're sure you'll love this record just as much as we dislike it.

There's absolutely nothing on here that could keep anyone with a taste for the emotional, the experimental, or the boundary-challenging engaged for the thirty-five minutes that it takes from you without giving back, but still; it's better than anything and everything from previous Penate and that's progress, right!