Album Review: Jake Bugg - 'Saturday Night, Sunday Morning'
After a turbulent few years, Jake Bugg returns with his fifth studio album: Saturday Night, Sunday Morning. “His fifth? That can’t be right”, I thought as I read it. It doesn’t seem long ago that Bugg burst onto the scene, heralded by some optimists as the next Bob Dylan. For whatever reason, it hasn’t panned out that way. Bugg has released several albums since then, including 2017’s self-produced effort On My One, to barely a murmur from the rest of the industry.
Whether a nod to the kitchen sink drama Saturday Night and Sunday Morning or The Specials’ “Friday Night, Saturday Morning”, the album’s title is a canny attempt by Bugg to stay grounded in the kind of social realism that won him plaudits on his self-titled debut. Bugg’s po-faced renditions of life growing up on a council estate in Nottingham were refreshingly earnest without being self-pitying, although he never quite matches the wit of Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner.
In actual fact, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning is an inwardly-focused, reflective album which sees Bugg ruminate over the passage of time. As someone of the same age, 27, I can totally sympathise with this fixation. He picks over the bones of old relationships, dwindling friendships and the vivid memories of growing up.
This melancholic mood is often at odds with his ongoing battle to eschew the folk-oriented sound of his early career. The upbeat clapped rhythm and polished backing vocals that underpin opening track “All I Need” disguise a vulnerability that Bugg seems determined to shirk.
This conflict of interests - between Bugg’s tendency towards earnest self-reflection and desire for a more radio friendly sound - provides an interesting battleground for the album. Ultimately, despite a few missteps such as the disarmingly languid “Lost” and unconvincing “Screaming”, Bugg’s better instinct prevails.
Despite its unapologetic sentimentalism, the closing track “Hold Tight” is undoubtedly the album’s highlight. There’s no getting past the fact that this is Jake Bugg at his most compelling: his reedily ethereal voice and deftly-plucked guitar left alone. Bugg asks “How will they remember me?” Hopefully, just as he is here.
Words by Dylan Wilby