Album Review

Johnny Flynn – Leftovers

• 1st Mar 2008

With the energy of Sons & Daughters and Whites Stripes and echoing the buoyant vibe of the latter’s Hotel Yorba, Leftovers by Johnny Flynn (JF) simply gets better and better with each listen. A song that could’ve easily been written Simon & Garfunkel, perhaps with help from Jeffrey Lewis given the subject matter, is helped merrily along with some urgent John Cale-esque stabbing instrumentation and a wonderful backing vocal that lifts the track subtly and successfully.

I would’ve given serious consideration to surrendering my left arm to hear a dramatic 2 or 3 minute marching band- like breakdown on this track, because it would’ve been truly mesmeric. But hey, unless JF read this and pull it off live, I guess you can’t have everything, right? Well, if so, we can be partly satisfied with a track that certainly takes a few steps toward perfection.