Twenty-six albums! There are a few bands or artists who rack up anything close to that tally, and most of those, I would suspect, started making music a long time before the black watch’s 1988 launch point. And if quantity doesn’t necessarily equal quality, having written about more than a few albums along the way, John Andrew Fredrick, the captain of this musical ship, always offers something artistic and intriguing, adventurous and appealing.
But, like any artist worth their salt, the music speaks for itself, you don’t need me to big him up, you only have to drop the needle on opener “It Is What It Isn’t” and let its raw melodies and almost shoegazy soundscapes wash over you to realise that this is something a bit special.
“Precious Little” and “Faze” blend a slight Bunnymen-esque vibe with, in the former, more intense sonics, and, in the latter, martial beats, and “Some People Will Believe” has a touch of The Cure at their most poppishly accessible. It comes as no surprise that the man is a confessed Anglophile at heart.
And, as befits a man with a stream of books, poetry, and a teaching career in his wake, there is something hyper-literate, elegant, and eloquent about the lyrics, that perfect blend of depth and accessibility that is the trait of all great writing.
This is music that comes from another age, and an earlier age, a golden age, when pop was still about guitars firing off salvos of muscular melody, before it became the lowest common denominator response to focus groups and fleeting fashion that it is today. And I don’t mean that it sounds like it is from the past, although there are some gorgeous reference points to be found, I mean that Varied Superstitions has all the hallmarks of music made at a time when people still seemed to care. I wish people today would care more about the music they make, and care as much as John Andrew Fredrick does.
