The Verse’s Alex Berdugo previews man-of-the-moment JP Cooper prior to his upcoming show at The Haunt on Monday 17th October.
Back in 2014, JP Cooper’s debut album When The Darkness Comes provided listeners with a unique combination of passionate pop music and melancholy soul. This soon proved to be a sure-fire recipe for catchy and easy listening tunes, convincing the world of Cooper’s ability to convey raw human emotion through song. Melodic guitar is mixed with mournful backing vocal harmonies on the album, creating a signature atmosphere across every track. The percussion renders you helpless to bob your head, while the piano haunts your ears and brings an increased depth to each song.
It doesn’t take long to appreciate JP Cooper’s voice, with his coarse undertones and seemingly effortless extended range lulling you to sink deeper into his material. Closer is, for good reason, one of his main hits. The sobering lyrics work in sequence with the progressive drum beat and changes in vocal pitch, making the song more than compelling. This sets the listener up perfectly for the rest of the album, including the sombre We Were Raised Under Grey Skies and the powerful title track of When The Darkness Comes.
The following album release of Keep The Quiet Out proceeded to cement JP Cooper as a consistent songwriter and unwavering producer of soul. Tracks such as Colour Me In Gold bring an introspective vision as the musical stories are told with morose elegance. The stand-out song A Little While Longer brings about an ethereal presence and unfailingly follows the quintessential JP Cooper musical formula.
Three singles have dropped since then, demonstrating that 2016 might be JP Cooper’s strongest year yet. Five More Days is structured around an unrelenting drum beat and a dark chord progression, one of his coolest songs yet. September Song is an exemplar piece of modern pop, whereas Party is more reminiscent of old school JP Cooper. All the new material has proven that Cooper’s career has a very promising future – we can only see whether this sublime musical talent provided by a one-of-a-kind contemporary artist translates just as well live.
Catch JP Cooper at the Haunt on Monday 17th October, tickets available here.
