Gone are the times when Jack Rock aspired to become a great figure, based on splendid indie-pop albums such as “Morning” (XL, 07) and (especially) “Everything Is New” (XL, 09) –both under the prestigious XL label–, which in turn included songs as colorful as “Be The One”, “Tonight’s Today”, “My Yvonne” (with Adele), “Pull My Heart Away” o “Second, Minute Or Hour”. The Briton now plays in a different league and, from his assumed position in the background of popularity, continues to publish music that perhaps could be understood as a reflection of his own emotional state.
“Wondrous Strange” It is a melancholic and largely introspective work, which is situated close to authors such as Sufjan Stevens, S. Carey, Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty or Bon Iver. An album in which the Londoner enhances his ability to move with elegant and careful songs, also heartfelt and one could sense honest, which extrapolate the author’s own background with the intention of projecting it directly onto the listener. A goal that Peñate achieves, intermittently, throughout some of the ten new pieces that make up what is his fourth studio album. The work alternates less interesting themes with gems such as “Swirling”, “Wing”, “Son”, in addition to the instrumental “Wondrous” that acts as the opening or the final “Sleep”. An album that, in any case, maintains a balanced and logical overall aspect, in which its author handles himself with tranquility, good lines and quite a few arrangements (sometimes even too many).
The musician, who returned five years ago with “After You” (XL, 19) after a decade of silence, it is located in coordinates definitively far from those of its beginnings, protected by a maturity from which it delivers an album that has a good handful of beautiful and good-looking songs, as a personal contribution to a winter in which they fit and to which they provide some warmth. It is no small thing for an artist who in another decade seemed to aspire to the glory of stardom and who now “is satisfied” with, from time to time, giving away a set of beautiful compositions to whoever he wants to continue listening to him.