John Grant - Queen Of Denmark

As lead singer with The Czars, John Grant’s talents went largely unnoticed by the record-buying public, and a handful a good reviews couldn’t prevent that group from eventually disbanding in 2004. Their dark, noirish rock was reminiscent of Mark Lanegan’s solo work, or Tindersticks at their broodiest; lyrics dealing in death and drugs, sung in a sinister baritone while guitars swirled overhead. They deserved more of a following, but the band’s ultimate demise eventually led to Grant playing back-up to The Flaming Lips and Midlake, with the latter now returning the favour on this, the Denver native's debut solo album.

Midlake provide ample accompaniment across Queen Of Denmark’s dozen tracks, and anyone a bit disappointed by their own new album from earlier in the year should find plenty here to remind them of the Fleetwood Mac/Carpenters-style rock the band channelled so effortlessly on 2006’s The Trials Of Van Occupanther. Some of the melodies are quite beautiful, with an obvious standout in the form of ‘Marz’, the first single. With Grant’s piano set against a gentle backdrop of picked acoustics (and a flute lifted straight from a Nick Drake album) the song builds to a chorus of yearning despair: “I wanna go to Marz, where green rivers flow / And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show” sings Grant, his voice a desperate cry to take him away from this fucked-up world. He sounds like a man who has seen it all before, probably twice, and another planet seems as good a place as any to escape from all this mediocrity and suffering.

While Grant’s lyrics still deal primarily with relationships and the pain they can bring, Queen Of Denmark does contain the odd moment of dark acerbic wit, the singer’s cynical worldview allowing for some bizarre pop-culture references. On ‘Sigourney Weaver’, for instance, he compares his own mental state to that of another famous actor: “I feel just like Winona Ryder in that movie about vampires / When she couldn’t get that accent right, and neither could that other guy”.

The issue of suicide surfaces on ‘Jesus Hates Faggots’, and, as you might well expect from the title, the song deals with a couple of other topical issues. This may all sound very serious – and a lot of Grant’s lyrics do touch on dark, heavy themes – but this is not a dour album; for every sombre piano ballad there’s a synth-led rocker or playful tune that McCartney would be proud of. In the end, though, it’s Grant’s incredible vocal delivery that pulls the album together. An instrument of rare beauty, it deserves to be heard by a whole new audience this time around.