Thanks For Reaching Out (Cal)

It's Jim Bob's 12th solo studio album, a stone cold masterpiece. Featuring 38 minutes of pop, punk rock and devastatingly moving ballads. Pressed in solid purple in a gatefold sleeve with a 2024 calendar. More topical than an episode of Newsnight, with songs about Putin ('The Day of Reckoning'), the Taliban ('This Is End Times') and whoever 'Billionaire in Space' is about. It's not all doom and gloom though (it's mostly doom and gloom). 'Sebastian's Gone On A Ridelaong' is a hilarious psychobilly romp and the pre- coronation written 'Prince of Wales' is like a pub lock-in, it's Bowie's 'Kooks' for older people. Recorded with the same group of musicians as his previous two chart smashing albums, 'Pop Up Jim Bob' (number 26) and 'Who Do We Hate Today' (34), with trumpet and saxophone from Terry Edwards and violin from Kate Arnold, Jim Bob has described it like he's at a poncy wine tasting: "When I listen to this record, I get flavours of Buzzcocks and Dexys, with notes of Teardrop Explodes and Slade. It's big and bold, bright and crispy, earthy and buttery, with a bouquet of barbed wire and an aftertaste of your life somehow never ever quite being the same again."