Bill Ryder-Jones
West Kirby County Primary (Bonus Track Version)
Album · Alternative · 2016
Without sacrificing his skill for heart-swelling melody, the former Coral man’s third album toggles between the reflective bedroom-folk of 2013’s A Bad Wind Blows in my Heart and the cock-eyed alt-rock he produced on Hooton Tennis Club’s Highest Point in Cliff Town. “Catharine and Huskisson” is fuzz rock spinning on a euphoric hook, “Satellites” somehow builds an earworm out of drunken, discordant guitars and “Daniel” is just devastatingly sad. The one constant is his intoxicating fragility – the sound of a man always one misfortune away from unravelling.