Review Summary: A Self-Identified 19 Year Old Alcoholic Made A Very Good Album
Languishing at home on a random Friday evening, a friend who I played gigs with back in the day sent me a text asking if I listened to the new Jim E. Brown album. I did not know who this "Jim E. Brown" was.
I do now.
Jim E. Brown is, according to himself, a 19 year old obese alcoholic from East Didsbury, a suburb in the Manchester area of England. He also claims to have several degenerative conditions and was born one day prior to 9/11. Now when you look at any photo or video of Jim online its very clear that he is taking the piss and playing a persona to some degree of humour. Some believe he is actually an American man from Pennsylvania, but for the purpose of this review I'll take his Bandcamp bio at face value. Jim E. Brown has been self-releasing music through Bandcamp and other platforms since around 2021 in which he has crated his art, which almost comes across as a bizarre blend of John Maus and Harry Enfield. He also tends to start every song with some variation of "My name is Jim E. Brown" and an announcement of the song title he's about to play. His songs, surprisingly, have some of the strangest titles I've seen in a while. Bangers like "The Queue on Greggs," depicting waiting in line to order of a sausage roll at a popular British fast food chain, "I Want To Open For Foo Fighters," in which Jim says he wants to open for Foo Fighters not because he likes them but because he wants "lots of money," and the whimsical "I'm Naked In My Room Huffing Nitrous Balloons."
Despite how incredibly stupid the concepts of these songs sound, the material itself is genuinely really well crafted.
And that brings me to "Dirt," Jim E. Brown's 10th album in 5 years. Its a record that comes across more 'polished' than his past works. The songs definitely feel more hypnagogic pop and that they came from an alternate universe where Ariel Pink was a mid-50s British man who traded drugs and African guitar music for lager and a chip butty. Its surprisingly clever and stupidly catchy for most of its runtime.
The vocals themselves are very close to spoken word, but somehow they don't feel latched on like they do with some bands and add a lot to the comedic element and the almost post-Sunday Roast open mic feel they have. The mix of live percussion and drum loops give some nice dynamics to the record along with some grimy punky guitars and bouncy New Order-y synth pads. The record starts off very strong, especially with tracks like "Ryan Adams Unfollowed Me on Instagram" and "I Have An Anxious Avoidant Attachment Style" that have some really dumb, catchy lyrics and really tight drum performances. The lead single "I Want To Get In Touch With My Inner Child" has a guitar tone that feels very House Arrest-era Ariel Pink and I almost wouldn't be shocked if he mixed/mastered this album because it hits a lot of those highs for me. The record just has a lot of variety of progressions while keeping the dry, poetic humour of Jim's writing and delivery and stays fairly consistent throughout. The only real middling songs, at least for me, are "She Said My Face Smelled of Butter," "I Am The Fattest Person In The World," and "Someone Threw a Sausage Roll In My Face In Glasgow" moreso due to the lyrical delivery overpowering the instrumentals or the instrumentals not being as good as the rest of the record.
So out of 15 tracks, having just 3 middling tracks is not bad at all. The highlights aren't technical or masterful enough for me to rate this record higher, but goddamn is it a satisfying listen, borderline, front to back. The highlight of this record, for me, has to be "I Want To Be Immobile" which nearly condenses the highs from the album into this borderline club banger about wanting to be couch-bound and "fed with a tube."
Jim E. Brown might be a con artist, he might be a deranged psychopath. But for me, he's an absolute madman who might have made one of the best records of 2026. No joke. Give this one a try if you don't mind the spoken word, its not for everyone but it definitely feels made for my dumb lizard brain.
