” ‘Mable’ is basically me working in my home studio throughout summer/winter 2013 writing, demoing and going a little stir crazy. It’s a power pop five knuckle shuffle bunch of songs that combines everything I love about music that’s melody, harmonies and guitars all put together with a quirky rock slant.”

– CJ Wildheart

The Wildhearts and Pledge Music seem to make one hell of a combination. With main man Ginger having released a steady stream of music through the platform over the last few years, it seems right that his fellow band mate CJ Wildheart would choose to do his first solo album in seven years in the same way.  Returning from his semi-retirement with ‘Mable‘, an album that is apparently named after his favourite of his own chickens, which he keeps at his house in Yorkshire, it is hardly the most rock and roll way to name an album, yet it somehow fits perfectly. This is an album about the worries of having to face the real world after a career that has shaded you from it.  The fact it is named after something as domestic as a chicken just seems right.

Always seen as the more pop loving of The Wildhearts this is an ‘Mable’ will only seek to further cement that reputation.  Opener ‘Better Late Than Never’ draws us in with some ambient electronics, before developing into a strong power pop track filled with big hooks and laid back fun. This is not an album designed to ignite chaos, but rather one that you can turn on while having a barbeque in the sun with a cold beer or maybe a splash of CJ’s own hot sauce, the terrifying named Devilspit. Although judging by some quick research, you might want to avoid that unless you have a tongue of steel.

Yet this is still an album that is coloured by a career spent in the music industry. It is not all pop harmonies and summer days. The punky tones of anti-drug song ‘Devil’ being the obvious example.  A dark twisting track, it destroys any idea that this is a lightweight album more based around melody than real life.  In fact, while an initial listen may leave you with this impression it could not be further from the truth.  Yes, this is a power pop album, but it is also an album put together by an incredibly good songwriter and tracks like ‘Vitriol’ and ‘Midlife Crisis’ can only further to cement that reputation.

‘Mable’ is unlikely to make any huge waves, but it will hit the spot for those that find it. It is a reminder that even if he has been gone for a while, CJ was an integral part of one of the best British rock bands of the 90’s.  It is maybe slightly ironic that by writing an album that’s lyrics takes a lot of inspiration from the idea of having to grow up and enter the real world, he may have proven that the world he has moved away from, could still use having him around.

7/10

CJ Wildheart ‘Mable’ is out via Devilspit Records on 4th August 2014.

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