From soaring ballads, written by new drummer Pete Brown, to poppy indie- rock songs written by singer Jon Leone (sung in his own Essex accent), Jail’s new album shows a growth in development and sound as they leave behind the lo-fi sound of previous albums and enter the realms of the proper recording studio. Described by TV’s Stewart Lee as “a meccano-kit replica of the classic lo-fi indie band template”, Jail started life as a lo-fi indie band, writing and recording in home studios, until they were discovered by Leeds promoter Steve Kind, who saw their demo in local guitar shop RockShack, was enticed by the hand-drawn artwork on the cover, and bought it on a whim despite having a policy of not buying demos by bands he’d never heard of. Singer Jon Leone writes catchy but poignant songs about the everyday and mundane: songs which have been compared to those of Blur and which combine the wit of Half Man Half Biscuit and Pulp with the fragile genius of Syd Barrett, Television Personalities and Stephen Malkmus. Themes covered in the songs on this album include time travel, chicken farming, Jon’s brother’s dog Coco, “crafty” farts, and self-service checkout tills at supermarkets. Owners of their debut album, Ri0t At The Health Club, include Mark E. Smith of the Fall, Stewart Lee (Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, The Sunday Times), Stuart Murdoch (Belle & Sebastian), Paul Putner (Little Britain, Look Around You, Fifteen Storeys High, ‘The Curious Orange’ in This Morning With Richard Not Judy with Lee & Herring) Ben Pritchard (ex-Fall guitarist), Ed Ball (The Times, Television Personalities) and Richard Bentley from Resonance FM’s Hello Goodbye Show, on which Jail have performed three live sessions. This latest album from Jail includes the songs “The Fringe”, “Basically” and “And Goodbye” by newer members Pete Brown & Nick Myers, which show a more commercial side to Jail. “Jail are a miniature Meccano-kit replica of the classic leftfield indie template. All they need now is scaffolding” — Stewart Lee “Perky post-Blur like gear” — Bugbear promotions “Future hipsters thirty years from now [might] proclaim him [singer Jon Leone] the new Dan Treacy” — Symptomatic Presents “Taking The DNA of Graham Coxon, Half Man Half Biscuit, Pulp and Depeche Mode, local boys Jail use edgy minor chords, drum machines and a spoken atonal lyric to conjure an English kitchen-sink sound...Good on yer Jail” — The Basildon Advertiser “Witty and inventive” — Scaledown