The Just Joans - The Private Memoirs and Confessions of The Just Joans

'Hey ho let's not go. I'd rather stay at home. Hey ho let's not go. The TV's good and the weather's shite...'

Motherwell's Just Joans start their new record, the wonderfully entitled The Private Memoirs and Confessions of The Just Joans exactly as they mean to go on. Speaking for small town eccentric non-conformists everywhere, they set out their wares from the off. Like your dour friends, the ones that are always sure to find the cloud in any silver lining.

Very much in the spirit of Philip Larkin, Mike Leigh, Alan Bennett, Morrissey and Jarvis Cocker if they had been born North of the border. As Just Joans make their way through life, the older they get, the more they don't know, in their own words. Haunted by the past. Frightened of the future. But somehow able to have a good time regardless.

Fronted by brother and sister David and Katie Pope who pepper each song with the mordant, acerbic wit of the perpetual under achiever. DIY Cassio indie, with aspirations towards Spector's Wall of Sound. Belle and Sebastian with Arab Strap's edge. Sung from the gutter but looking at the stars. When Nietzsche Calls indeed.

The two take turns to sing lead which infuses the record with dirty fingernailed ying and yang.If there's something slightly sad and very British about the streak of failure which runs through each and every song here, Just Joans consistently locate the funny bone in failure and much on display here achieves a hard won, miserabilist grace. Welcome to 2020. Make a cup of tea. Put a record on...