Double J Pick of the Week

Steve Gunn
Milly’s Garden

The advent of Jack Johnson and his ilk of handsome, chiselled surfers with acoustic guitars means that the term "cruisy vibes" when discussing music is lost to the rest of us forever. For the most part, this is no big loss. But with the kind of music Steve Gunn and his mates (we’re looking at you, Kurt Vile) have been pumping out, it’s almost worth caring enough about to want it back.

On Milly’s Garden, Gunn is cruisy in the way that the Stones were as multi-millionaire world beaters in the ’70s. It’s full of loose jams, simple-but-clever progressions and a sense of pop mastery that peeks through the washes of guitars, organs and languid drawling. Of course it also helps that Gunn sings a little like Jagger and plays more than a little like Keith.

With the old fellas in the country right now, it’s worth noting that there are modern artists following on from their considerable legacy with quality music like this. Not just smoking a pack of cigarettes, necking a bottle of scotch and strutting around rock clubs like they’re the embodiment of rock’n’roll. Milly’s Garden is substance over style and easily better than anything The Stones have released in a while.

Of course, I’m not saying any modern act is more important than The Rolling Stones. That’s ridiculous.