Track Listing

1. Embers
2. 253
3. The Day I Died
4. Doctor Doctor
5. So Wrong
6. Blood
7. All Night Cinema
8. Astronaut
9. Goth In The Disco
10. Lo And Behold
11. Basement

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1149 in Music
• Released on: 2009-08-31
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced
• Dimensions: .23 pounds
• Running time: 112 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Success has done weird things to Just Jack. While his literate English pop peers--Lily Allen, The Streets--have responded to fame by becoming larger-than-life caricatures, channeling tabloid controversy back into the music, Jack Allsop’s third album is shy, understated--anonymous, sometimes. But if All Night Cinema is more everyman tales than indulgent self-analysis, it’s a look Just Jack wears pretty well. Lead-off single “Embers” proves that some pretty moving productions are within his grasp, an emotive production of dancing violins, hand-claps, and harmonies that overlay in beautiful patterns, while “The Day I Died” demonstrates that the knack for casual storytelling that Allsop demonstrated on The Outer Marker and Overtones is still present and correct, a relaxed lope of acoustic guitar and thunking drum break that hides a bittersweet twist in the tale. Other moments might prove a mite relaxed for fans who like their pop with more edge, but the album’s only real misstep is “Goth In The Disco”, an unconvincing electro-pop pastiche that overreaches somewhat as it tries to rhyme “dance” with “ambulance”. ––Louis Pattison

CD Description
Just Jack returns with his stunning new album All Night Cinema, the follow-up to his smash-hit LP Overtones. All Night Cinema sees Just Jack at his blistering best. Produced and almost entirely written by Jack (along with co-production by past collaborator, Jay Reynolds), it is a genre-busting album, packed with infectious, catchy, hook-laden tunes. The new LP features straight-out, hard-hitting pop songs, wrapped around Jack’s razor-sharp lyrics and acute observations. Lyrically, he finds himself talking about everything from the sublime to the ordinary, eloquently depicting life in England in Jack’s very own inimitable way.

Customer Reviews

A Scholar and a Gentle-man
Jack Allsopp, the world is a better place with you in it.

'All Night Cinema' is an accutely observed and beautifully
constructed collection of 11 songs from a young writer of
talent and distinction.

Idiosyncratically, irreducibly English; shrewd, quirky and knowing,
this lad knows his way around a good tune.
Bursting with wonderful musical and lyrical ideas as well as
boundless irrepressible energy, it's a heady and seductive mix !

Start listening anywhere on the album and you won't be dissapointed.

'The Day I Died' transforms the tragically ordinary into pure gold.

'Doctor Doctor' is a blast of a track. Canny sprechgesang of the funniest
most articulate kind. The chorus is nothing short of delicious.

'Blood' is a terrifyingly topical tapestry of stark urban imagery.
Love and death and loyalty amid the ruins of bleak and broken lives.

Title track 'All Night Cinema' takes time to work its magic.
The fragile, knowingly off-key vocal delivery adds to the
composition's pathos. A haunting invention.

'Goth In The Disco' is very funny (every bit as silly as Frank Zappa's
'Dancing Fool'). A dark story gleefully told.

Final instrumental 'Basement' delivers an unusual conclusion.
A bit little epic. A little bit DIY. A whole lot thumbs up !

A magical experience from top to tail.

Essential.

Bittersweet symphony
Jack Allsop's previous LP 'Overtones' was a unique blend of sharp observations, sweet harmonies and hypnotic beats; this follow-up is more of the same but I'm certainly not complaining as it's as emminently listenable as anything he's done - even the ubiquitous 'Stars in their Eyes'. Alsopp's lackadaisical vocals coupled with hip-hop beats and topped-off with a Disco sensibility, are as intelligent, witty and droll as anything by Morrissey, Neil Tennant, Mike Skinner, Eminem or Paul Heaton of The Beautiful South.
Standout tracks here are: 'Embers', arguably the most musically complex and most accomplished song Jack has written to date; 'Goth in the Disco', a quirkily humourous electro number that is so obviously tongue-in-cheek that the Amazon reviewer's comments made me chuckle; and 'Astronaut', as laid-back and droll as anything from previous CD 'Overtones'.

Endlessly emotive, pulling no punches, and avoiding becoming a pastiche (unlike some of his contemporaries); Just Jack is exactly that: Just himself, just honest - just right.

Just... Jack
Enjoyed The Outer Marker, loved Overtones, and really wanted to love this. And yet, and yet, whilst there's nothing really wrong with it, somehow it's just a little too understated.

His subject matter remains the everyday and it's a subject he wears well and easily. The lyrics are still smart, relevant and snappy without being too self-conscious with just about each song well crafted around them, telling a short (often bitter-sweet) story.

But somehow this time round, the musical soul and variety which was there in Overtones is missing. The harmonies still work and the drum beats, violins and handclaps form a neat and clever backdrop to the lyrics but each song sounds just a little too similar and a little too underplayed. There's nothing which matches the lo-fi funkiness of "Disco Friends", the hip-hop-esque punch of "Life Stories" or soaring vocals of "No Time". Instead the tracks just roll into a steady and pleasant backdrop which just slides past you without you noticing.

Clearly there's a couple of stand-out tracks - Embers matches the best of Overtones - but equally there are disappointments, especially Goth at the Disco which, absolutely blinding live, is stripped of its passion and turned into an overly engineered series of electronic blips.

It's still worth getting, and better than a lot of similar music, but sadly just not what I'd been hoping for.