Continuing Las Vegas Musician Week at my blog, Jenny Lewis recently released a new album, and although it’s not as lyrically substantial as some of her previous efforts, it does achieve a nice, beachy sound to compliment her voice.
This time out, the Rilo Kiley frontwoman is one-half of a duo called Jenny and Johnny with her boyfriend, Johnathan Rice. The record is titled “I’m Having Fun Now,” and indeed, Lewis seems to have relaxed into a ’60s-ish pop sound that fits her voice comfortably.
The tunes generally feel light and breezy, words I don’t usually associate with Lewis, who has struck me as being a bit depressed even when her songs sound pretty.
“Scissor Runner” (“A scissor runner stole my heart”) gets the album off to a silly, catchy start. I hadn’t heard of Rice before this album (my music geek buddy Matt tells me I wasn’t missing much), but his voice compliments Jenny’s beautifully on the opening track.
Unlike Brandon Flowers’ Vegas-centric album, Jenny and Johnny get away from Sin City and take a sonic trip to a California beach. Although “My Pet Snakes” references a desert creature, it is very much a beach song. On the disc’s simplest and catchiest track, “Big Wave,” Lewis goes lyrically surfing. “Just Like Zeus” moves the action to Mount Olympus only through the words; it still sounds like we’re gathered around a beach campfire.
“Switchblade” is slow but rewarding as Lewis delivers pretty choruses to bail out the Rice-fronted song: “See you on the way up/ See you on the way down.” And “Straight Edge of the Blade” is sharp performance where Lewis does most of the singing.
Although his voice isn’t as amazing as his girlfriend’s, Rice is good enough to hang with her, and he does his best work on “Animal”: “Show your teeth to everyone/ Don’t let no one prove you wrong/ You are an animal/ An animal/ An animal.”
Rice’s “New Yorker Cartoon,” the only four-minute track on the disc, kills the fast-paced mood slightly. He returns to the mic for final track “Committed,” a fill-the-dance-floor concert-closer with silly lyrics like “For God/ For country/ For Michael Jackson’s monkey.”
Basically, this is a pleasant new Jenny Lewis album, no matter if the name on the album is Rilo Kiley, Jenny Lewis or Jenny and Johnny. Rice makes a couple nice contributions and mostly steps back and lets Lewis do her thing. His presence won’t offend longtime Lewis fans, and he might win a few of them over.
How would you rank “I’m Having Fun Now” among Lewis’ catalogue? Has she found the perfect collaborator in Rice, or are you holding out for the next Rilo Kiley album?