Jinx Lennon: Walk Lightly When the Jug Is Full – An album rooted in surprisingly soft earth

Jinx Lennon’s latest album surveys just as many eclectic subjects as his previous work but here takes in the beauty of the west of Ireland, incels, smoking, the press-gang era, noisy neighbours and more.

Yet this record is rooted in surprisingly soft earth for the Dundalk punk poet. It is to be found on the beautiful instrumental Atlantic Coast Woman, the delicate atmosphere of Celibate Rifle Day and the graceful piano of A Trillion Ways. Brutality is woven through tenderness in Lennon’s lyrics, whether he’s telling a story about an unfortunate encounter with a hero on Tyrants of the Open String – “I won’t bow and scrape” – or expressing his disdain for the cover version on Sing What You Know About.

There is a pleasing tension to something like Pregnancy Test Kits, with its playful melody and harrowing honesty. Crisp White Shirt takes its cue from a scene in the British film Lynn + Lucy, with militaristic drums beating out the devastation.

Lennon’s gift is pulling us into small moments, the kind that stitch a life together, as on the ballad 20 Silk Cut Blue, about his father’s mother, who loved that brand of cigarette; The Man Who Loved Abba, about an alcoholic ex-boxer from Belfast who happened to hold the Swedish quartet in esteem; or the glowing and sad Bonny Iris, partly inspired by a book he read about the press-ganged Jack Tar sailors.