After last years excellent "Trees" EP, Rob Jones & The Restless Dream have wasted no time in kicking off their 2024 campaign and the opening release is the appropriately named "January Man". If you enjoyed the musicality of that earlier EP then this single will continue that love affair, from the opening piano intro that recurs throughout, to the sumptuous organ that rises to the fore especially towards the end.
The single sees Rob take on the role of narrator who decides to see in the New Year inebriated in Denmark's capital seemingly full of hope for the future yet still carrying baggage from the past. As is befitting of a man who quotes T S Eliot in his newsletter Rob lyrically does this with his usual care and panache while his vocals gain have a warm yet gravelly touch to them
"I got tired of waiting out the winter
Thought I'd see what next year has to say
I'm determined that tomorrow will be better, than today
Took that midnight plane to Copenhagen
Thought I'd set my four sheets to the wind
I'm no stranger to strange old situations
Or more trouble than the trouble that I'm in"
The chorus is a stirring affair, the music rising in intensity as the lyrics become seemingly ever more downbeat though it does end with Rob hitting the title of the song on a marvelously extended note.
"And I guess I should have known
Things don't always go to plan
I'm a thousand miles from home
Still your January Man"
The second verse with the Narrator now in Vienna only confirms that he is still pre occupied with a past liaison
"Never said that I would I promise to forget her anytime soon
Now here I am looking for the language that I need
Tried to find Rapunzel by her hair
There is little more to life right now than make believe"
The latter visits to the chorus seem to ever build in in intensity. Toria Woof's backing vocals appear and the pedal steel flexes its musical muscles, playing an ever prominent role. The lyrics each time are also slightly altered, lines that shed more light on the state of mind of the Narrator
"And I guess I should have known
What is hard to understand
I'm out here sinking like a stone
Each time it returns, the chorus seems to musically give something more, like a latter day "Like A Rolling Stone", just as it seems nothing more could possibly be heard you catch something new, the one constant being Rob's voice,
Stranger in the snow
With a tremble in my hand
Better times might come and go
I'm still your January man
If I wanted to let you go
They ought to shoot me where I stand
Whichever way the wind might blow
I'm still your January Man"
An undoubted winning way to start the year and #TEAMw21 eagerly await to see what else Rob has in store for 2024.