Sometimes you just want a tune that is simple, jaunty, direct, clean limbed, poppy and infectious. Just For The Mystery ticks all of those boxes and more. In an age when the numerous options available to an artist in the studio often results in songs being dressed up beyond what is needed, of unnecessary layering and additional musical gimmickry, it is great to stumble across tracks that still remember what’s important in music. If you can strip a song right back to its simple melody, cutting out any extraneous textures and fashionable add-ons and it still sounds great then you have a good song.
Jackson Howard seems more than aware of this and is so confident of his song that, far from over playing his hand he instead allows it to just be about space and simple hooks. The result is a song that seems to link the modern pop of jack Johnson with the iconic early years of  Billy Joel, which is jaunty and fun, effervescent and addictive, classic and still modern. How does he even do that?
