25 barbed wire steps into the border hinterland via garage rock sampler neanderthal covid era howls made from punk hip hop glam rock and showband drumbeats.A look at provincial life ,a call to arms to protect the spirit,the mojo ,the head ,the clan,the bit of sense left in the head.

 

Robert Christgau ,Consumer Guide

The stick-to-it-ive Lennon’s best album in years is also his most musical ever, which has zip to do with tunes or solos. It’s about making a racket, not principally from Chris Barry’s “electric guitar” but from Lennon himself on not just “vox” but “keys, guitar, bass, samples, noises, drums, beats.” Just about every one of these 25 songs or rants sounds different as Lennon rants more than sings his tales, lessons, complaints, and expostulations. Topics include ice cream, comfort zones, street life, racism, automobile fetishism, sexual objectification in general, spousal abuse, lost mojo, the limits of luck, the limits of New Zealand, feeling stupid inside, standing up for something, self-knowledge, shit happening, and the uses of serotonin. A-

Hot Press-Edwin Mc Fee

Jinx Lennon is an unstoppable force of nature. With PET RENT, he has proven once again that, just when we think we know all the answers, it is time to change the questions.

Over the past couple of years, the bard from the border has treated our lugholes to psychedelic concept albums and cosmic folk. Now, he’s serving up his most aggressive, beat-laden collection yet, while tipping a cap to ’80s punk.

Part of a hat-trick of upcoming releases, PET RENT is a feral beast, loaded with lyrical jabs aimed at racists, overbearing bosses and TV licence men. An angry record for an angry era (‘My Job Is Killing Me,’ ‘Skivvy’), the Dundalk native’s trademark vocal delivery is turned up to 11 throughout what amounts to a manic dissection of modern Ireland. While PET RENT takes a little longer to digest than previous Jinx records, tracks like ‘You Know Yourself’ (which owes a debt to ‘Crazy Horses’) and ‘Hard Town’ are well worth chewing on. Very tasty indeed.