With a CV that already includes sleeve design for Fab Macca and David Bowie’s ‘Platinum Collection’ and a role as guitarist and harmony vocalist with rated singer/ songwriter Amy Kelly, young Australian gent based in London JAMES COOPER is already doing plenty to make heads turn.
Yet regardless of such intriguing sidelines, it’s his role as singer/ songwriter in his own right that ought to be cherished in particular. For his debut album “Second Season” – written primarily on a six-week London hiatus in a small French town called Sarlat and recorded in Sydney with Michael Carpenter at the controls – is an assured thing of wonder and yet another reason to marvel at why the greater unwashed continue to miss the lasting appeal of beautifully-crafted power pop.
Admittedly it helps that anyone hooking up with Michael Carpenter is odds on to create something rather loveable. Hell, the guy’s akin to hiring a one-man orchestra and a quick peek at the credits reveals that he lays down most of the drums, bass, additional guitars and keyboards that Cooper isn’t responsible for. But even allowing for Carpenter’s skills and enthusiasm, we shouldn’t underestimate James Cooper as an artist. Including bonus track “Never Know Why” there are 11 songs here, and there’s nary a duffer within earshot.
As with Michael Carpenter’s own work, Cooper’s songs run the gamut from crunching, hook-laden rockers (the addictive, beefy Big Star-bothering opener “Everything To Everyone”, the strident should-be-single “Christine”) through to downbeat, grandiose piano ballads like “Sammy” (which recalls Ryan Adams at his world-weary, “La Cienega”-style best), but in all cases Cooper’s emotive performances are charismatic and gravitas-fuelled and ensure “Second Season” measures up as an album you’ll turn to for long-term enjoyment.
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Unsurprisingly, Cooper wears his influences in badge-like fashion in places. The gorgeous “Love In London” has a sunburst of a chorus that bleeds pure Neil Finn, while there’s more than a whiff or three of The Beatles (and “All You Need Is Love” especially) in the horn-laden “Save Me From Love” and “Couch In Montmartre”’s evocative and playful diary of Cooper’s Parisian experience is as resonant as anything from the pen of Perry Keyes or Michael Weston King. Crucially, though, Cooper is good enough to throw plenty of his own psyche into the plot, and there’s no denying the personal beauty of songs like the melancholic “Dry Reaching For Grace” the slowburning, dream-on anthem that is “When The Wall Comes Down” or the plaintive acoustic folk-blues of “Really Miss You.”
Possibly the one decision I would argue against would be the inclusion of bonus track “Never Know Why”. Not that it isn’t a lovely tune filled with Wurlitzer organ and under-stated Fender Rhodes, but after the naked postscript soul of “Really Miss You” it perhaps gilds the lily slightly. This is a mere trifle, though, and overall this finely-wrought debut suggests James Cooper is both a notable singer/ songwriter and very much a man for all seasons.
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