I used to wonder why in these troubled times there wasn’t more music that was highlighting and documenting the cracks in society, culture and politics rather than just trying to paper over them with pop-pap and cliched and increasingly irrelevant rock. After all rock ’n’ roll, punk, hip-hop and the like all rose as a reaction to the world around it, so where are today’s drum beaters and sonic revolutionaries? And then I realised that I was missing the trick, politics is being discussed, just in far subtler and indeed smarter ways.
Sean Shiff is one of those having that very conversation and he knows that it is better to remind each other that we have more in common than that which separates us and the way to heal the riffs is to offer thoughts and suggestions that build bridges rather than make people get defensive and become even more entrenched in their beliefs.
That’s Just Fine is a gentle reminder that just because we don’t agree on our political views, we can still get along. The reference point is obvious but it goes beyond one country and one decisive political figure and it is also a reminder that this is, hopefully, just a transitory period and when it is all over we can, with a bit of luck, go back to something more neighbourly, more friendly, more…well, more normal.
