Jake Bugg | Jake Bugg album review

There’s nothing more refreshing than the sound of simple, pure, unrefined guitar folk-pop that can act as your saviour whilst you inevitably begin to drown in a sea of dance music and become lost in the overpowering waves of electronics that are now taking over the music scene. 18 year old rising star, Jake Bugg, has gone back to basics with his beautifully written songs accompanied by his much loved guitar. While his music is somewhat traditional, it still holds an invigorating essence of ‘new.’  Bugg has taken the media world by storm and is constantly being likened to Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Don Mclean, Donovan and the like. It’s clear who Jake’s influences are, but I’m conscious of the fact that all these comparisons are masking his obvious individuality and raw talent as an original artist.

High expectations have been placed upon the release of Jake’s self titled debut album after the huge success of his singles ‘Lightening Bolt,’ ‘Troubled Town,’ ‘Taste it’ and ‘Two fingers.’ Jake has been a feature on Radio 1 many times, including rightfully taking the title of Zane Lowe’s Hottest Record which has increased his fan base and inevitably the anticipation for the album.

Jake has fulfilled and exceeded the expectations. There’s so much more to him than the ‘teen-angst’ we hear on the singles. Tracks on the album are more delicate and beautiful than you could have imagined. Accompanied by his acoustic guitar alone, the pure vocals riddled with raw emotion on ‘Slide’ are sure to pull on your heartstrings. The equally emotionally raw build up to the beautiful harmonies in ‘Broken’ are sure to make to the hairs on your neck stand on end.

Bugg shows his versatility as all the well-written songs vary from theme to theme. On an album, it’s more than likely that you’ll have the odd song or two that you can happily skip past when you've got in on shuffle. On this album, there aren’t any of those. From the heart wrenching love song of ‘Someplace’ to the 50’s influenced sound effects in ‘Fire’ to the upbeat country style of ‘Simple As This,’ there isn’t one song that you won’t instantly fall in love with.

His shockingly good talent in his song writing shows that a wise and knowledgeable head sits on his young shoulders. For an 18 year old lad, it’s astonishing how honest his lyrics are and I can’t help but feel that he must have been through more than his fair share of shit; he’s definitely ‘Seen It All!’ ‘Seen it All’ is seemingly influenced by Clifton; the council estate that he’s grown up in, in Nottingham. He talks about stabbings at a house party that he crashed after he’d taken a pill ‘or maybe two.’

‘Two fingers’ tells us of his memories with his friends in Clifton like skinning up a ‘fat one’ and hiding from the ‘feds’ while he expresses his general ‘fuck it’ attitude.

Jake says himself in Troubled Town, ‘If I talk of getting out, I only hear the laughter loud. It's got an ugly echo.’ I wonder who’s laughing now, now that Bugg has escaped ‘speed bump city’ and broken free into the big wide world! If this is what he can produce at the age of 18, I look forward to whatever this talented Nottingham teen produces next.

Best songs: Broken, Seen it All

Album rating: 9/10

The album will be available for purchase and download on 15^th October