John Byrne
Album: Don't Let Life Get You Down
Label: Alexis
Tracks: 2
Website: http://www.jonbyrne.co.uk/

Jon Byrne is hitting our speakers again with a short single taking 'Don't Let Life Get You Down' from his album 'It's Boring Being in Control'. It is very clearly Jon. Lively, foot tapping and amusing as he tells a typically mad story to us. Much in the same way his infamous 'Cigarette Song' has a moral, this lead song does too. As the title suggests Jon wants us to make sure that we don't let life get us down.

The second track is 'Forever Chasing That Feeling' from his latest LP 'Built By Angels'. We get a nice contrast to the previous track with this one being much slower and easier to focus on the lyrics. This latter track is also much more country western sounding, possibly due to his desire to break more into American audiences.

Jon is a good singer, and this is of course the main attraction to him. I must note that his voice is much croakier on the second track, and for me this did put a slight damper on the song. There is a lot of attitude in his music that comes across as dark humour but also holds strong elements of seriousness.

Paul Rawcliffe