Deep down we all knew our dysfunctional dreamboat Joey never went away, and here comes his spirit – bug-eyed and bumbling, six-feet-six of torn knee teenage romantic, shambling his way along the side of that great, sad and stretched, destination-robbed highway of American pop music signposted in huge, home-lonesome neon every hundred sore feet miles or so by a beach combing, dream mad Brian or a trigger hapless genius, highschool hurt Phil or now, closer all the time, Personal and the Pizzas and “I Don’t Feel So Happy Now”, their okey-doke, cut-up crooning ode to, well, things being a bit rubbish sometimes, really. Like a clowning drunk slurring jokes on the highest ledge, there’s a sprightly, boozy lightness to the song that belies its underlying turmoil but, as is so often the case, it is exactly such alienation and confusion that take on a beautiful air when refracted through the saintly prism of a perfect, plain hearted pop melody the like of which we’re treated to here in all its sad-punk spirit of Roy Orbison drawling and license-less pick-up truck americana.

Personal And The Pizzas – I Don’t Feel So Happy Now