Far From Saints is a collab between Kelly Jones of Cool Cymru survivors Stereophonics and Patty Lynn and Dwight Baker from US country rockers The Wind and the Wave who seem to be innoffensive enough. They do the work and get the job done. I know I’m a bit late to the party. This came out last June so any interested parties will probably have heard the trio’s 10-track debut album by now.
Jones and Lynn harmonise really well together, their respective tones dovetailing nicely throughout. They sound a bit like a less polished and more bluesy version of Deacon Blue. You get the rough with the smooth – Kelly Jones’s gravelly croak and her soft touch, hitting the notes Jones gave up trying to reach about three albums ago. I was a bit wary of giving this a listen, to be honest. It’s been sitting on my playlist for ages. In my mind Kelly Jones just about manages to stay relevant through being in Stereophonics. The stuff he’s done on the side has been patchy at best. He made a solo album a few years back and named all the songs after women he’d shagged. Sorry, been in a relationship with. then he pulled a fast one and called the album ‘Only the Names have been Changed.’ The crafty git. I thought he would get absolutely shredded for that, especially as it came out just as the #MeToo movement was hitting. But nothing happened. Dodged a bullet there. Maybe he managed to pass it off as more Bowie than Ryan Adams nut it was still a bit of a weird concept. The album made you feel grimy just listening to it. And after that he did the Don’t Let the Devil Take Another Day compilation, which was pointless in the extreme.
This project is a significant step up from that. The album is a bit one-paced and samey, and there isn’t really much to get excited about. If I still made mixtapes would anything from this make the final cut? Maybe one of the singles as a token representative. Do bands even do singles any more? Anyway, point is, this just plods along, the odd big chorus, the odd soaring guitar solo, but nothing to elevate it too much. All that said, this is pretty solid work. From front to back, it’s well paced and the tracks don’t outstay their welcome. There’s always a danger with projects like this that those involved might get a bit too indulgent and start drifting toward those bland nine-minute epics. Thankfully, Kelly Jones steers clear of that and after the requisite couple of listens, a few tracks do begin to stand out. Let the Light Shine Over You and Screaming Hallelujah are fit to grace any playlist, and neatly condense what the album represents down to neat little 4-minute chunks. Take it Through the Night is a bit more raw and rocky, reminiscent of classic Stones, while the cheerfully-titled We Won’t get out Alive, a deep cut from the second half, manages to rise above the mediocrity and anthemic closer Own It (it even has a ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa refrain) is one for the ages. Something that always impressed me about Sterophonics was their ability to pace an album and end it on a high. That was all Kelly Jones. He knows how important it is to finish strong.
That cover art is also interesting. There’s a lot to unpack here. Looks to me like the trapeze artist guy has lost his grip and is tumbling to his doom, which could be a metaphor for a lot of the subject matter contained herein. The trapeze artist girl is doing her best to save him, bless her, but it looks like a lost cause at this point. the poor dude’s going to get smashed to pieces in front of all those people. It’s an impactful visual of how tragic and futile all this is, that dutiful sense of going all-out to save something you already know is lost, all of which feeds into some of the lyrics and the general vibe. Not that that’s a negative thing, at times the music has a joyous gospel flavour, but there’s also a lot of reflection, melancholy, and regret here. Fiona Shepherd of The Scotsman said this album; “Plays out exactly as you might expect with a mix of country balladry, southern soul inflections, winsome vanilla pop, orchestral embellishments and the acoustic roots rock which best suits Jones’s raspy voice.”
It’s a long way from Cwmaman.
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