More WeLeftYouSleepingAndGoneNow: "God Bless The Last Words Of An Amateur Historian" And "Sword Buried"

And so let's continue our trip across the unreleased first Johnny Foreigner record, shall we? We're up to tracks seven and eight from the set WeLeftYouSleepingAndGoneNow [which we reviewed in full here a month ago], and next week we'll cover nine and ten, and then we'll be done, as we've already covered album closer "A Slow Song For The End" in the initial review, yeah? Hard to believe we are almost through this, and we've got to say we've enjoyed spending so much time with this collection, which as we reported many times before was recorded by a nascent, pre-Kelly Southern Johnny Foreigner line-up in the trio's practice space in 2005 and released in a hyper-limited edition of 40 handmade copies.

Perhaps more than any other track on WeLeftYouSleepingAndGoneNow, "God Bless The Last Words Of An Amateur Historian" hews closest to the Birmingham, England-based trio's more recent work. It touts expansive guitar arpeggiation accented by Junior Laidley's uptempo drumming and accents, with bass work -- or at least bass notes played on a guitar, a la the SM and Spiral Stairs-only line-up of Pavement -- lacing the two together with a firm melodic backbone. The song is crying out to be re-recorded by the band, it's that good. The ba-da-das and breaks in the denouement are as catchy as any contemporary Johnny Foreigner, and there is even a female vocal part subtly appointing the final moment that Ms. Southern could appropriate. All around an ace track. The second tune we'll focus on today is "Sword Buried," the exceedingly curious electro-trance instrumental we mentioned here as exhibiting what would seem to be a pretty heavy Aphex Twin influence. The track is wholly uncharacteristic of the rest of the Johnny Foreigner oeuvre, but is still a very satisfying pastiche of styles that still is clearly a Johnny Foreigner track. Download both tunes below.

Johnny Foreigner -- "God Bless The Last Words Of An Amateur Historian" -- WeLeftYouSleepingAndGoneNow
Johnny Foreigner -- "Sword Buried" -- WeLeftYouSleepingAndGoneNow
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[buy in-print Johnny Foreigner records here and here]