Album review: SJD, Saint John Divine

Sean James Donnelly. Photo / Supplied

If Sean James Donnelly could cash-in all the many stars he's had on his reviews over the years, he would be probably be our wealthiest local musician. He's been a critical fave for most of his now seven-album career span, one which started out in experimental sampled electronica before declaring his songwriting hands on the likes of Southern Lights (2004), an album which began something of a dream run. One which by the sounds of Saint John Divine seems to have continued.

His previous one Electric Wasteland won him the Taite Prize, though its frosty electropop maybe didn't hit the same emotional spots he'd managed with the songcraft of his previous efforts.

Saint John Divine, though, is blessed with warmth, indelible melodies, and stories to tell from SJD's askew, dryly witty point of view.

Unlike its laptop-driven predecessor, it's an album of SJD and musicians (some better known than he) producing a set big on gentle guitars, orchestral adornments, sweet harmonies and nifty details.

The often rich arrangements - especially on ballads Unplugged and the closing Was I Always Here - sometimes reminding of the wide-screen fold gorgeousness of Beck's Morning Phase.

As SJD's done before, he's conjured up his inner Bowie too, at best here on I Saw the Future, the gripping opening track which blooms from its Ziggy-ish voice-and-guitar beginnings into something sweetly symphonic.

It's also got songs that should be pop hits in a smarter world. Songs like Little Pieces with its nursery rhyme melody and New Order-ish atmosphere; And like I Wanna Be Foolish with its chunky guitars threatening Sweet Jane before it finds its own bubbling groove and comes out swinging with its infectious anthemic chorus hook.

Elsewhere it's turning Helensville into an even spookier place than The Bads managed in their song of the same name and giving the ghostly Invisible Man a hushed gothic grooviness.

It's doing gospel things on Through the Valley, a song amusingly skewering teenage dalliances in religion and on Change the Channel, its sunny jingle-friendly beginning soon gives way to barbed media commentary.

It all makes for one captivating album. It may not win any prizes for bold experimentation. But Saint John Divine is truly blessed with SJD's best set of hymns yet. Praise be.

Artist: SJD
Album: Saint John Divine
Label: Roundtripmars
Verdict: Local critical darling delivers another cracker

- TimeOut