Yussuf Jerusalem, the brainchild of former Creteens and Jack of Hearts member Benjamin Daures, is back with a second LP of songs that show off a wide palette of influences, while somehow managing to flow together like tracks on a good album should.
Though the song titles might cause you to expect doom, gloom, and heartbreak, the band mixes in all types of emotions and borrows from numerous musical styles. While the metal-influenced “Evil Rise” sounds like it came from somewhere east of Scandinavia and south of Hell, it is followed by an upbeat, though hauntingly beautiful indie-folk song in “Through Winter’s Darkest Day”. From there, punk, garage, and even Celtic sounds are thrown into the mix. The next to last track, “You Broke My Heart in Two”, even sprinkles in a little spaghetti western twang.
Albums that display lot of different musical influences and styles (see the Black Lips’ 200 Million Thousand or, more famously, The Clash’s Sandinista) often seem less coherent than more focused albums by the same acts. Daures, with what began as a home recording project, has now proven on two albums that he has that rare knack for celebrating the highlights from his entire record collection without releasing jumbled messes.
