Joe Kelly & The Royal Pharmacy: Cast Me Down
Title: "Joe Kelly & The Royal Pharmacy Light the Fuse on Cast Me Down
The restless troubadour returns with a bold, kaleidoscopic follow-up to his acclaimed debut
by Jack Rush
It’s easy to file the itinerant bluesman away as a relic of music mythology—somewhere between Robert Johnson’s crossroads legend and Seasick Steve’s hobo theatrics. But Joe Kelly made that myth flesh. For years, he lived out of beat-up cars, vans, and caravans, armed with a broken-necked guitar, a battered harmonica case, and a head full of songs born on the road. That wandering life finally came to a pause when he found shelter in a repurposed Victorian police station just in time to weather the COVID-19 lockdown. It was there that he forged his debut album, World On Fire, a rootsy and resonant collection that chronicled his rambling years with the grit of dustbowl blues and the cinematic sweep of Americana.
Backed by his band The Royal Pharmacy and with Jon Greening behind the boards, World On Fire blended ghostly country and blues with lush production. It offered a glimpse into a weathered soul who had clearly lived every lyric he sang. Now, barely a year later, Kelly returns with his second LP, Cast Me Down, and it’s clear that the so-called “difficult second album” is anything but.
Written and recorded in tandem with his debut, Cast Me Down is the other side of the same coin—a wild, sprawling, and gloriously untamed twin. While World On Fire gently simmered, Cast Me Down boils over. It’s experimental, theatrical, and unafraid to veer off the Americana highway into psych-pop detours, soul-infused alleys, and even the surreal sonic landscapes of The War On Drugs, Unkle, and Father John Misty.
Opening with a familiar indie-Americana warmth, the album quickly shifts gears with a backwards guitar loop that signals a break from the past. From there, it’s a genre-hopping thrill ride: think Arctic Monkeys lost in the desert at Rancho De La Luna, or side two of Abbey Road refracted through a lo-fi kaleidoscope.
Kelly’s band remains tight and responsive, and producer Jon Greening’s fingerprints are all over the album’s widescreen palette. But Cast Me Down also welcomes new voices—most notably Erin McNamara, whose golden vocals add depth and contrast, and Scott McKeon of Rusty Shackle, whose violin lights up the psychedelic crescendo of “Living Daylights.”
This is not a quiet follow-up—it’s an audacious, sometimes chaotic, and thoroughly thrilling evolution. Joe Kelly has already demoed over 30 tracks for his third album, suggesting the creative river hasn’t just flowed—it’s flooding.
With Cast Me Down, Newport’s prodigal son proves he’s no mere blues drifter. He’s a shape-shifting, genre-defying songwriter with both roots and wings—and a kitchen sink full of surprises.
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