Peter Yorn The Shelter, DublinSheesh, not another goddam US singer enamoured, of all things, by Britrock. Cantcha get your own influences?
New Jersey-born Pete Yorn is a self-confessed Anglophile, ever since he heard his first Smiths album; he even used to sing in a fake English accent, but he's ok now. As he kicks into The Smiths' Panic, Yorn sounds less like Morrissey and more like Eddie Vedder on a pure pop trip. When he charges into the urgent alt.rock of Murray (a song about Brian Wilson's father), it's a relief to find that
Yorn also possesses a broad US vision.
Twenty-six-year-old Yorn started his career by playing a Replacements tune, and his own band displays that same searching, celebratory style of guitar rock. Chords spring out into the crowd as though waiting to pounce, and basslines rumble as though digging for fire. It's the sort of music that doesn't hang around kicking its heels, but strides on recklessly into uncertain terrain.
Yorn's debut album, musicforthemorningafter, is soon to be released, so tonight is both an introduction to the man and a taster of what's to come.
Strange Condition and Just Another may already be familiar, since they were featured on the soundtrack of the Jim Carrey movie, Me, Myself & Irene. Other songs from the album - such as Sense, Closet, On Your Side and For Nancy ('Cos It Just Is) - are spangled on the surface with the usual US rock cliches, but Yorn's Anglophilia ensures that the music only occasionally strays into Springsteen or Tom Petty territory.
The Shelter was well-attended for Yorn's Dublin debut, but sound problems at the start meant that it took a while to assimilate Yorn's cultural mix.
Unsurprisingly, he ended with another English cover, David Bowie's China Girl, but happily leaned closer to Iggy Pop's original version.
