China Bears - 'Jolene'
Photo credit: Lizzie Wood
As a music critic, being able to distance oneself from the music your reviewing is a valuable trait to learn.
Though perhaps seemingly counterproductive (after all what’s music if it doesn’t invoke an emotional response) it allows writers to form balanced opinions and maintain a sense of professionalism that hyperbole for entertainment’s sake might otherwise not. There are times however, when the emotional response is too much to ignore, and any sense of professionalism falls by the wayside.
This was one such occasion.
Not a reworking of the Dolly Parton classic, though it does get a namecheck, ‘Jolene’ is the latest single from West Country four-piece China Bears and, much like its predecessors, is a beautifully understated alt-rock offering that brings to minds bands such as Death Cab for Cutie or Manchester Orchestra effortlessly. Indeed, such is its understated nature, that it’s only on repeat listens that ‘Jolene’’s real beauty begins to reveal itself.
Both gut wrenchingly familiar and heartbreakingly honest in its depictions, the narrative of ‘Jolene’ hits and it hits hard. Far from feeling overwrought however, it’s the quiet subtleties of the track’s inherent melancholy that really provide the gravitas.
From its quiet, confessional verses, to the gentle yet strengthening swell of the chorus, there’s a maturity and an understanding at play within ‘Jolene’ that’s rarely seen in more conventional ‘break-up songs’. As such, there’s also a subtle optimism that flows through the track’s core, making for something that’s both quietly devastating, but not without a degree of optimism.
Achingly familiar to anyone who has ever tried to get over a break-up, the realness with which frontman Ivan grasps the emotional nuances that come with such an event is painful. And though such lyricism is of course the product of personal events, such heart-on-sleeve honesty only serves to strengthen ‘Jolene’’s resonance.
Words of Dave Beech