Rocker (feedbot)
Gold Member
“I wanna play a big tune in a little room, I wanna fuck things up and kill the moon,” says Jonathon Fraser – AKA Northbound – on ‘Big Tune (Fuck Off Forever)’, and with a goal like that, you have to appreciate his ambition. He’s shared bills with Simple Plan, The Home Team and Knuckle Puck in his seemingly permanent state of being on tour, but Fraser’s fourth album, ‘Juniper’ comes after several years of laying low and almost accepting his status as a pop-punk also-ran. It’s a “statement of return,” according to the artist, and it feels both fresh and familiar with each stroke.
If your era is 00s punk, whether you were there the first time round or not, this album is going to be your jam, poised with imagined nostalgia for the present and past. “Juniper doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, but it does spin it in a way that hasn’t happened for a while,” Fraser explains aptly, and his total self awareness of his place the universe is a big part of Northbound’s appeal.
The aforementioned ‘Big Tune (Fuck Off Forever)’ is the first single, first track, and first look at where Northbound is after five years between albums. It’s a tribute to the simple pleasures in life, a song that’s come out at the perfect time of year for appreciating the hazy memories of punk rock summers past and easy, air-guitar-able tunes. But it’s ‘Baby’s Breath’ that displays a grown-up poignancy that catches your attention. It’s the sort of song that Neck Deep will be writing in a few years time following a celebrity divorce. “Some flowers never get to bloom,” he sings with a heavy heart, struggling to swim in oceans of melancholy key changes and sorrowful backing vocals. ‘North Star’ takes a tougher, more Blink approach to heartache, as does ‘Science’: deceptive lyrics add a shadow of intelligence to the introspection in the same way the layers of thrash give both songs an air of courage against adversity.
Northbound is getting older, as, let’s face it, we all are. He tackles the emerging trope of former poster boys tackling the aging process with good humour cut with bitterness on ‘Six Pills’. “Shave my head so I can be as ugly as you make me feel,” is the sound of emotional baggage being jettisoned at high speed, leaving room for the jangly, contemplative early morning regret of ‘Stockholm’. It’s all the self-loathing we love to exorcise through pop punk with a dash of heady zen acceptance. Putting a “walking away” track at the end of an album isn’t exactly ground-breaking, but ‘I Can’t Say Goodbye’ (So I’ll Just Leave)’ provides a satisfying level of closure with its peppy take on loss.
‘Juniper’ raises one very important question. Why isn’t Northbound bigger than this? It can’t just be due to his lack of razor blade cheekbones and his own bespoke charity foundation. Fraser’s tunes have everything that you want if you’re looking for a smart take on the jaded innocence of the noughties: poppy hooks, emotional guitar, barely concealed anguish and the sense of being stuck in a small town while your friends enjoy glittering success that permeates so much of the sub-genre. The catchiness that earned 2019’s breakout track ‘Very Long List’ seven figures of Spotify streams has now been rounded out and made fuller, each aspect of his sound now bolder and illustrated with more vibrancy.
Given the continuing resurgence in love for this specific era in music (see: Blink 182 announcing yet another leg of their world tour, making it basically a musical millipede at this point), this is going to be the right time for Northbound to take his place in the sun with ‘Juniper’ and its multi-dimensional, bold, retro-current sound.
KATE ALLVEY
If your era is 00s punk, whether you were there the first time round or not, this album is going to be your jam, poised with imagined nostalgia for the present and past. “Juniper doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, but it does spin it in a way that hasn’t happened for a while,” Fraser explains aptly, and his total self awareness of his place the universe is a big part of Northbound’s appeal.
The aforementioned ‘Big Tune (Fuck Off Forever)’ is the first single, first track, and first look at where Northbound is after five years between albums. It’s a tribute to the simple pleasures in life, a song that’s come out at the perfect time of year for appreciating the hazy memories of punk rock summers past and easy, air-guitar-able tunes. But it’s ‘Baby’s Breath’ that displays a grown-up poignancy that catches your attention. It’s the sort of song that Neck Deep will be writing in a few years time following a celebrity divorce. “Some flowers never get to bloom,” he sings with a heavy heart, struggling to swim in oceans of melancholy key changes and sorrowful backing vocals. ‘North Star’ takes a tougher, more Blink approach to heartache, as does ‘Science’: deceptive lyrics add a shadow of intelligence to the introspection in the same way the layers of thrash give both songs an air of courage against adversity.
Northbound is getting older, as, let’s face it, we all are. He tackles the emerging trope of former poster boys tackling the aging process with good humour cut with bitterness on ‘Six Pills’. “Shave my head so I can be as ugly as you make me feel,” is the sound of emotional baggage being jettisoned at high speed, leaving room for the jangly, contemplative early morning regret of ‘Stockholm’. It’s all the self-loathing we love to exorcise through pop punk with a dash of heady zen acceptance. Putting a “walking away” track at the end of an album isn’t exactly ground-breaking, but ‘I Can’t Say Goodbye’ (So I’ll Just Leave)’ provides a satisfying level of closure with its peppy take on loss.
‘Juniper’ raises one very important question. Why isn’t Northbound bigger than this? It can’t just be due to his lack of razor blade cheekbones and his own bespoke charity foundation. Fraser’s tunes have everything that you want if you’re looking for a smart take on the jaded innocence of the noughties: poppy hooks, emotional guitar, barely concealed anguish and the sense of being stuck in a small town while your friends enjoy glittering success that permeates so much of the sub-genre. The catchiness that earned 2019’s breakout track ‘Very Long List’ seven figures of Spotify streams has now been rounded out and made fuller, each aspect of his sound now bolder and illustrated with more vibrancy.
Given the continuing resurgence in love for this specific era in music (see: Blink 182 announcing yet another leg of their world tour, making it basically a musical millipede at this point), this is going to be the right time for Northbound to take his place in the sun with ‘Juniper’ and its multi-dimensional, bold, retro-current sound.
KATE ALLVEY