Quite possibly the most noteworthy side project to arrive from members of notorious NYC squat punks Leftover Crack, Ezra Kire’s Morning Glory have taken about nine years to produce a new full length since the excellent ‘The Whole World Is Watching’, and ‘Poets Were My Heroes’ boasts being the first Morning Glory backed by a live band – the general point of which being that Ezra is making a point of this being a “proper band” rather than a vanity project.
The “crack rock steady” sound is still at the heart of the band on ‘Poets Were My Heroes’, but the arrangements and instrumentation give the band a dimension above the crusty ska punk that they’d be expected to make. The meaty 50 minutes are well balanced and carry enough variety to maintain interest but, everything considered, the band could have done with releasing the album quite a while ago to keep fans interested. That said, once the record has been spun a few times, the quality of the production and the songwriting does shine through – there’s a true folk influence throughout (most notably displayed in closer ‘Care Of Me’) and it’s far smarter than anything the other nodes of the Leftover Crack circus have put together in recent years.
Tracks like ‘Born in December’, ‘Touch’ and ‘Divide By’ are excellent, but it really is an album to appreciate as a whole and the lyrics throughout are excellent. The true test with Morning Glory is in whether they can make impact as a standalone band, and ‘Poets Were My Heroes’ shows enough quality to attract new fans in. It’s certainly an album to mull over until it clicks, but there’s little doubt that it’s had plenty of love and attention put into it – well worth a follow up listen for fans of the first record, but fans of folk-influenced punk will have as much fun as those fans of that “crack rock steady beat”.
TOM AYLOTT