Song Review - Just Like Normal

Just Like Normal

by Jim Lawrie

Album: EONS (due 2014)

The internet makes it much easier now than I guess it was twenty years ago but there can be such a bombardment of good music when you look for it that it's not always easy to find it, which sounds strange in itself, but is actually so true. You can easily press play on a hundred songs in a minute and sometimes only the really special ones stick out which makes the little 'x' in the corner of the screen is too easy to hit some days.


All of this brings me to Jim Lawrie, a Melbourne based singer/songwriter who first came to my attention with his single 'Midnight Run' last year, so much so that it made our list of Top 113 Songs Of 2013. I loved it. I really, really fell for the charms of his sounds and his indie rock swing, for a few weeks there I listened to it countless times. After loving that song so much, it's no surprise that his latest single 'Just Like Normal' is one that stopped me in my tracks and that little 'x' in the corner of the screen is still yet to be hit with this one. The full, rich sound is warm in it's welcome, the keys heartfelt and the drums driving me toward that play button again and again. While the indie/folk/rock sound is going to draw some impressive comparisons, it's that line over and over again that caught me in the place that my favourite music does; "we don't need to dream no more, we don't need to dream no more...." and with those guitars I'm left with a melancholy feeling of contentment, ideal on a winter day.


Perhaps you will hear a hundred songs in the next week, perhaps you will only hear two or three, but either way,  'Just Like Normal' should probably be one of them and with sounds like these, when that new album is released later this year, I'm pretty sure I won't be hitting that little 'x' in the corner of my screen for months.

Jo Michelmore gives 'Just Like Normal' three and a half Michael Hutchence heads out of five...