Joe Chester is at sea. Caught up in the shipwreck of a failing marriage, his sixth album captures the dead ends, empty stares and heavy silences that drag out the days and block out any glimmer of hope. In songs written from a time before divorce was a viable option, the Irish singer-songwriter and producer – and former guitarist for The Waterboys, Sinéad O’Connor and Gemma Hayes – teases out the tension between two people who were once madly in love and, within this emotionally-confined space, he paints a greater picture of need versus want.
This push and pull is immediately evident on the self-explanatory Stay Together for the Children, where Chester compares himself to “an evangelist in the colosseum who has to choose between love and freedom”. As he loses his footing in this marriage, he finds his own spirituality dwindling. He loses all sense of himself and, on the rather maudlin My Shipwrecked Mind, questions if he can trust his feelings anymore. As the love dims, so does his faith in the greater world – and it makes for a rather ominous listen.
Instrumental tracks such as Is Cuimhin Liom (“I remember”) and the mournful, fiddle-laced Synge’s Chair lend a lot to the despair of this meandering time. Combining traditional strings with contemporary guitarwork, these arrangements fill the air when there’s nothing left to say, and add to the exasperation of this torturous period. If this album was a colour sheet, it would be devastating blues, crushing whites and suffocating greys.
Recorded between Sun Studio in Memphis and Chester’s home studio in the south of France, Jupiter’s Wife features contributions from Julie Bienvenu from A Lazarus Soul and members of The Waterboys. A collaborative but deeply personal project, this record is taut with emotion, but the most striking moments – namely The Heart of Saint Laurence O’Toole – arrive when the musicians get lost in their surroundings.
While he remarks that he still sees happiness in his lover’s eyes on Novena, he strikes down any rekindling of love with evocative lyrics such as “I am the heatwave burning the bouquet, I am the blood on the parade”. This union isn’t just over, it is obliterated.
Jupiter’s Wife was Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage and childbirth – and, as Chester sings “love forgives everything at the beginning and forgives nothing at the end” on the drawn-out Nothing at the End, he makes it clear on this pain-stricken album that even the gods cannot save what’s irretrievably lost.
