It is sometimes hard, at least on first hearing, to say what it is that Stephen Jacques does that makes him stand out from the pack. His music sits comfortably into the alt-pop/rock bracket; he’s not trying to change the form massively. Lyrically, he writes about very relatable subjects, but there is still a feeling that what is going on here is like little you have heard before.
Why? It may be just that he writes better songs than most. Perhaps they are more honest, heartfelt, and authentic. More relatable, relevant or revealing. Maybe, without burdening himself with the baggage of fad and fashion, he is free to write in a style that is truly his own, a style that, with enough time passed and a favorable wind, could very easily find itself in the rarified company of music that gets labeled, “classic.”
Whatever he does, he does it all over this latest album, the wonderfully named Prayers for an Orange Cat. “Sometimes Love is Not Enough” kicks things off in fine style, a song that seems to draw lines between the fractured punk-romance of Johnny Thunders and the innocence and purity of Daniel Johnston. “Fisherman of Ireland* sounds like The Waterboys had Mike Scott not hailed from Scotland and gravitated towards the Emerald Isle but was a proud son of Virginia.
There are songs built on deft acoustica, such as“Oslo Street Beat,” there are drifting country delicacies with “Tel Aviv Sea Balcony,” and there are epic rock anthems, such as the squalling, swelling, searing “When Will The Love Start.”
Stephen Jacques has been doing this for a long time, and it shows. It shows in the quality of the songs and their originality, in the way that his own personality is felt in the music, and his own worldview in the lyrics. These are not just songs for the sake of them; these are biographies and diary entries, references to actual events and experiences, they are home-grown philosophies and honest observations, dreams and projections, old skins shed and new ones grow.
If you want to know anything about Stephen Jacques, just sing his songs.
Website
Prayers For An Orange Cat
Bandcamp
