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‘This Is My Kingdom Now’ is the new album from Justin Currie, out now on Endless Shipwreck Records. Currie will support the release with a some UK tour dates with his band The Pallbearers, later this year.
After 22 years toiling in the moderately successful pop/rock outfit Del Amitri, Justin Currie made the rash decision to go it alone in 2003, spending the next four years fannying about writing, drinking and doing any weird non-rock gig he was invited to participate in; jazz shows, folk shows and soul shows added more saggy strings to his collection of bows. In 2008 he finally pulled his finger out and pushed the button on a solo career with the release of his masterpiece of maudlin, ‘What Is Love For’. The question mark was missing, perhaps denoting an answer reached: “the future is miserable and I shall sing it”.
His fourth album of this series, ‘This Is My Kingdom Now’, follows on from follow-ups ‘The Great War’ (2010) and ‘Lower Reaches’ (2013). The pop sensibility of Del Amitri’s sprightly hits was largely missing from this solo oeuvre, replaced by a tone Currie himself describes as “suicide in a saucy shirt”. Over time audiences have begun to divine hit-type hooks buried within the gloom and now flock to hear epics such as “No, Surrender”, “If I Ever Loved You” and “Falsetto” with an alacrity some find surprising in an age where distraction from modernity’s inferno is a kind of medical emergency.
Currie lives and breathes in Glasgow, collects beer mats and makes his own cushions.
Justin Currie ‘This Is My Kingdom Now’ – Tracklisting:
1. My Name Is God
2. Fallen Trees
3. This Is My Kingdom Now
4. Sydney Harbour Bridge
5. Crybabies
6. Failing To See
7. The Dead Sea
8. Abandoned Sons
9. Hey Polly
10. I Love The Sea
11. I’ll Leave It To You
12. Two People
13. My Soul Is Stolen
Praise for ‘Lower Reaches’ (2013):
“Whether the idiom is Badfinger=esque powerpop or spry Dillard & Clark-like country, Currie’s graceful melodies are up to the job” **** – MOJO
“A rich atmosphere of Americana…..dallying on the outskirts of John Grant pop grandeur” – UNCUT
“He’s always been a provocateur and a playful critic of consumerism as well as a wistful chronicler of the minutiae of everyday life, and the fallacies and failings of men” –
THE INDEPENDENT
“A songwriter on top of his game” **** – THE SUN (SFTW)
Tickets for the JUSTIN CURRIE – Chester – Live Rooms show are available from:
Sunday 22nd October
CHESTER – Live Rooms
Box Office No: 0871 220 0260
Website – https://www.theliverooms.com/event/justin-currie-pallbearers/
Tickets – £20.00 (advance)
Doors – 7.00pm / On-stage – 7.30pm