Jinder, Jinder, Jinder… a very pleasing moniker that just rolls of the tongue. So much so that I spent a while doing just that. Then I started trying to make little rhymes, but that proved to be difficult. Try it yourself. Here I’ll start you off:
“There once was a tunesmith called Jinder…”
There will be a prize for the best one.
But I digress. You want to know what I made of “9c from Benelux” don’t you?
Jinder is a very assured singer and guitar picker. The production is on the button with a soft warm sound and tastefully sparse use of slide and banjo here and there. The songs ache with longing for a world of long dusty trails, big skies and dumb gas station attendants.
He is at is best with intimate and heartfelt subjects such as “Aimee” which is as sweet a love song as you’ll hear this year. I’ll say nothing about the cover of “Vincent”. You probably don’t associate the song with a childhood holiday in Morecambe and it would be unfair to burden you with the detail.
Also there’s another problem.
Songs that couple “slide guitar” with “whisky bar” are fine when you’re from Austin Tx, but Jinder is from rural Warwickshire UK. That knowledge just grates on me and I can’t help wondering why pubs, pedestrian shopping precincts and cheap cider aren’t worthy of Jinder’s impressive songwriting skills.
Maybe I’m being unfair. After all, no one ever criticised Zep because they didn’t actually come from Middle Earth and Dr Octagon probably wasn’t born on Jupiter. This is a good little record from a class act.
You can buy 9c from Benelux and other titles from Jinder's back catalogue at www.jinder.co.uk
Reviewer: CP Mandrake
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