Jack O’ The Clock: Portraits

It’s hard to follow up a highly acclaimed album, such as Jack O’ The Clock’s 2023 The Warm, Dark Circus. But that was the task they faced with this release, Portraits. Musically, it’s similar to its predecessor in some ways; one wouldn’t mistake this for another band. But, structurally, it’s quite different. While The Warm, Dark Circus featured only nine tracks, several of them lengthy (two at 13 minutes and one at eight minutes), Portraits has 17 tracks, yet the album as a whole is a few minutes shorter.

According to the band, the album “presents a collection of bit-sized, slice-of-life, mostly first-person portraits of individuals ranging from childhood to old age, bound up in the quietly desperate particulars of their lives. Each voice forges a unique alloy of characteristics, from resistance to resignation, earnestness to irony, but with a consistent undercurrent of humor.� That comes through clearly, but I would also say that several of the songs evoke thoughts of places as well as people; perhaps that is inevitable, as the two are often hard to separate. That is especially true, for me, on some very nice instrumentals, including “No. 4 Mountain,� “Lazy Tom Bog,� “Twomile Island,� and “Stone Cold Steve Cactus in Mojave.�

Musically, Jack O’ The Clock has been described as prog folk with some fusion thrown in for good measure. I think that’s an accurate description, overall. If you want a band to compare them to, the one that most quickly comes to mind is Horslips.

Of the non-instrumental tunes, the ones I enjoyed the most were the jaunty and warmly titled “I’m OK, You’re a Shithead� and the powerful and at times cacophonous “Puer 1.� I imagine that this album will get some abuse by the band’s fans. I can understand that; there are a fair number of tracks that I would classify as skips. But there’s a lot to like too.

Track Listing
1. Josephine’s Fresh Cuts (6:19)
2. I’m OK, You're a Shithead (4:34)
3. No. 4 Mountain (2:08)
4. Another Sunny Day / Star of Monster (2:49)
5. Year of the Gypsy Moths (3:26)
6. In the Gold Coin Saloon (2:34)
7. My Life’s Not Wasted (1:40)
8. Lazy Tom Bog (3:31)
9. The Gardener (1:49)
10. Nature Abhors a Vacuum (5:06)
11. Puer 1 (2:19)
12. Twomile Island (2:09)
13. Isolation Booth (5:07)
14. Stone Cold Steve Cactus in Mojave (1:32)
15. Windigo Knocking (4:37)
16. It’s Hard to Find Booze on Sunday (3:59)
17. Puer 2 (0:41)

Added: July 31st 2025
Reviewer: Aaron Steelman
Score:
Related Link: Band @ Bandcamp
Hits: 317
Language: english

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