Baxter Dury is the son of Ian Dury, and the tough-looking little tyke in elephant flares standing next to his pops on the cover of the latter’s 1977 LP New Boots and Panties!! He’s also a stellar musician in his own right, and over the course of nine critically lauded albums has amazed with his spoken word wit while moving steadily towards the dance floor.
And in 2025 Dury took to the disco riddims in a big way with a flurry of Paul Epworth-produced singles that mated his wry, pessimistic, and sometimes flat-out crude lyrics with sleek and slinky grooves and the bonus vocals of up-and-comer JGrrey. They culminated in the recent release of the exceptional post-disco LP Allbarone, on which Dury comes across as one cool customer, a combination Boz Scaggs/Jarvis Cocker with a bad attitude, a deadpan delivery, and a sardonic way of looking at love, jets setters, omelets, the Hapsburgs—all sorts of things.
To quote a dead certain dead pop star, Allbarone is simply irresistible.
Dury isn’t a happy camper or an inspirational speaker—he trucks largely in romantic disappointment and other forms of human unhappiness, and he does so with drily funny lyrics that can be startlingly direct but often tend towards the oblique, which is to say I have no idea what he’s talking about half the time. But he makes it sound good on a nonstop parade of dance tracks and slower funk breakdowns, only a few of which leave me underwhelmed. The best of them are anchored by killer hooks, and Paul Epworth’s electronic backdrops provide the perfect settings for Dury’s often black sense of humor.
“Return of the Sharp Heads” is the album highlight, thanks in equal measures to the bass-driven groove and the smooth vocal stylings of JGrrey, whose constant refrain (it opens the song) is:
“You’re just a bunch of soul-fuckers
Who rate yourselves
You’re just a bunch of soul-fuckers
In beige lapels
I’ll sit back and admire how much you hate yourself
You’re just a bunch of soul-fuckers
You total cunts.”
Not very subtle that, but it certainly wakes you up, and it’s followed by Dury, whose stream of consciousness lyrics (you get “nihilism toffs,” “S.S. Trousers and charity-shop haircuts,” and “dainty-fingered cunts”) culminate in the repeated lines,
“This world might mean something to you
If you make an effort with these soul-fuckers
Gold lapels
Stop that laughing.”
Wow. The title track is romantic no-show letdown set to “Now is the time in Sprockets when we dance” mechanized robotic electronica, and features JGrrey sweetly repeating,
“Answer the texts, answer the phone
Tell me if you’re coming to Allbarone
Answer the texts, answer the phone
Tell me if you’re coming to Allbarone.”
Dury goes all Phil Collins “Misunderstanding” as he intones (he doesn’t sing, he rarely sings) the words, “I booked a hotel/That night in Allbarone, I sat in the rain/Thought about all those promises made.” And to be honest it’s not his heartbreak that sinks its hooks in me so much as the slick production, oily groove, and cool back and forth between JGrrey and Dury.
“Schadenfreude” is another album standout, highlighting as it does Dury’s rancorous wit and the ethereal vocals of Fabienne Débarre of the French band Evergreen. It opens with some moody strings, over which Débarre repeats “Schadenfreude” before the funky synth beat takes over. Dury laments that he’s in a hotel in Stockholm waiting for your call but you’re “off with that boner” when he reads a “bitter review of a band you’re in” and presto: Schadenfreude! Meanwhile Débarre keeps stepping in to say,
“Déjà vu on the hotel foyer
Ignored everything you said
Backflips on MDMA
Ignored everything you said.”
The beat is relentless, the song goes on and on, and Débarre does some ethereal singing towards the end. Killer.
“Mockingjay” is the last of the best—it opens on an astral ethereal note, very cosmic, then Dury comes in hip hop hot and heavy. He’s said the song was inspired by The Hunger Games, and it makes sense:
“I share my dreams
With all these idiots
I kiss you goodbye
Pray tell I’m the answer
To all things good
You’re everything
I need to survive
The revolution
The revolution.”
The song hits you with a rhythm stick and it hurts, Dury repeats “I’m the mockingjay” over and over again, and he’s joined by JGrrey, who adds heavenly vocals. It’s a big, dramatic production number, this one, and it works.
“Kubla Khan” has sweep. Dury proclaims himself “Chiswick’s Kubla Khan” and is obviously heartbroken, which doesn’t stop him from tossing off obscure lines along the lines of, “Twenty-four-seven heritage bunny/Low-brow lover of all things shallow” and
“Eat your food in my bath
They’ll criticise why it doesn’t float
Saw you on an escalator going the wrong way
Swallowed my pride, waved and waved.”
But mostly it’s a plaintive (but movable) “long time no hear” number, and features a bridge on which guest Georgie Jesson repeats the lines,
“One month later, one month later
You leave a nice DM
One month later, one month later
Ready for the neon lights.”
“Hapsburg” boasts a more lackadaisical beat, and when Dury commences to sing in a breathy, high-pitched and frankly weird way, I don’t like it! Who sings like that? What I do like are the spoken word sections, where he takes aim at some ill-defined (do the Hapsburgs still exist?) contingent of the jet set, tossing off hilarious lines like
“You spill your drink over me
Your Hapsburg lips glistening in the moonlight
Unusual models on leather seats
In tiny planes bound for lusty isles
Humble men in frightening frocks
Laughing at French actresses
The international fuck omelette please.”
The international fuck omelette please? Is that the greatest line ever or what? Towards the end a breathless Madelaine Hart comes in singing,
“Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me
Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me
I got a feeling I wanted to fall
I got a feeling I wanted to fall
I got a feeling, I got a feeling
I got a feeling I wanted to fall
I got a feeling, I got a feeling
I got a feeling I wanted to fall.”
And speaking of weird vocals, the string-drenched and slow closer “Mr. W4″ totally throws me, what with Dury’s son Kosmo singing like, well, words fail me. A foghorn with an echo pedal? His vocals are off-putting period. Both Hart and Débarre also contribute vocals, and Dury himself does lots of talking, although I have no idea what he’s going on about—he loses me at the streets of Shoreditch and the Dutch bikes.
But if “Mr. W4″ is too strange for words, old school disco number “Alpha Dog” (love the deep-dish bass, strings, and vocals by Hart) is a winner. Hart is being alpha-dogged but is “calm about who you are,” while Dury says things like “I’m the one you need/Unpredictable till fun is needed” and “Sorry for what I said, it was the other me you see.” I’ve used that one. I love how Hart sings, “It’s just another minor speeding offence but it’s not your fault/Please don’t apologize, this was how you were born.” Cracks me up every time. As for “The Other Me,” it’s the closest thing to a placeholder on the LP. Not a loser—that fat bass line makes sure of that, as does the way the song kicks into gear while Georgie Jesson jumps in on vocals and Dury tosses off lines like “I’m ashamed of the chain and the shirts that I wear/But I swear no one understands who I am” and
“Pacing like a panther
Dripping with lust
Everyone’s scared of
Till it’s fun.”
Dury brings Serge Gainsbourg to mind, and the glitter-ball disco glitz of Allbarone comes across as a departure point and the birth of a fantastic new creature. The combination of dance, anomie, and wit is a winning one. I can’t wait to hear where Baxter Dury goes from here.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
