Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong

Unless you’ve been paying attention, you may well have dismissed Brighton moppets Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong as just another crew of sub-Libertine Britrock plodders, to be filed, and dismissed, alongside Wombats/Kooks/Pigeon Detectives et al. Certainly, they’re hard to warm to live: an actor of some experience (you might have caught him in Dublin Castle-shot medieval sauce-fest The Tudors) Lean is a bit of a stage brat, all sucked in cheek bones, preening flourishes and audience-baiting hooey.
But on record, things are very different: their debut album is awash with yearning psych rock; plaintive guitar chimes and lashings of damp-cheeked wistfulness. Above all, this is an LP stuffed with gooey hooks: ‘Lucio Starts Fires’ is sixth form Coldplay that climaxes in a swoonworthy chorus; ‘Baby’ delivers heroic chamber pop in a British Sea Power vein; the discordant tremble of ‘Lonely Buoy’ offers a glimpse of the insecurities behind Lean’s dandy exterior. Granted, there are moments where it all goes a tad Razorlight: ‘Where Do You Go’ starts, promisingly, with a spoken word intro but quickly loses its footing in a miasma of off-the-shelf Brit-fop whilst ‘Brooklyn’ is a soupy B-side that should have been binned at birth. It’s a shame there are so many fumbles, especially over the record’s closing strait – with a smidgeon more quality control, Joe Lean... could have been a doozy.