Project Description
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JACK NOLAN
‘THE LONELY PETUNIA’
Album Review
(17th October 2025)
Review by Audrey Songvilay
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Previous Reviews:
“Jack Nolan has had a hand in numerous Aussie lineups playing with members of The Hoodoo Gurus and Midnight Oil but “Songs For Hemingway” is stripped-back acoustic music and it’s very impressive. overall an excellent album and highly recommended.” – Americana UK last year’s review of LP Songs For Hemingway
“The veteran Sydney troubadour recorded his latest album in Nashville wit producer/multi-instrumentalist Justin Weaver, and whilst the instrumentation is acoustic the songs ebb and flow from the gently fragile ‘Slaughterhouse Joe’ to the pulsating ‘Mother of Al Storms’.” – Rhythms Magazine last year’s review of LP Songs For Hemingway
“As a true purveyor of Americana, Jack stays true to the staples of roots music while also taking the genre to a fresher perspective with his Aussie twist.” – Ghost Echoes part of review of 2023’s LP Jindabyne
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From Bondi’s salt-laced air to the shimmering waters of Sydney Harbour, Jack Nolan’s eighth solo album, The Lonely Petunia, lands like a record that’s been carried across oceans. Co-produced with multi-instrumentalist Justin Weaver, it resists neat categorisation. Fragile one moment, commanding the next, these songs unfold like stories whispered around a fire, meditations on living, losing, and searching for meaning in the pauses between life’s noise.
Always
Always opens gently, like sunlight spilling over a quiet beach. The acoustic guitar is deliberate, unhurried, giving Nolan’s voice room to linger: “Keep searching still… You hold me true, always, you always do.” It’s intimate, almost voyeuristic, as if you’ve stumbled into a private confession. There’s no urgency in the tempo, no dramatics. Nolan’s voice makes you notice every pause, every stretched note. The story isn’t spelled out, and that’s the point: it could be love, loss, or longing. The song marks time in quiet, reflective spaces, a perfect first step into the album’s introspective world.
Extraordinary
Extraordinary hits with a stark piano motif, immediately establishing a tension that grips the listener. Nolan’s vocals alternate between urgency and hushed reflection. There’s a cinematic sweep here, evoking scenes of urban nights or empty docks. The lyric “I lost her on the harbour” carries a quiet devastation. Strings hum beneath the surface.
Nolan’s phrasing is conversational. His voice rises, softens, retreats, mirroring the ebb of memory and emotion. The song’s architecture is subtle: moments of tension give way to pauses that feel as necessary as the melody itself. Extraordinary isn’t flashy, but it’s patient, and deeply human.
The Less You Want To Know
With The Less You Want to Know, Nolan offers a shift in mood while maintaining his signature intimacy. The melody is lighter, more playful, almost lullaby-like, yet the lyrics reveal a subtle tension beneath the surface: “The more you look, the more you see, the less that you want to know.” It’s a meditation on perception, the unspoken, and the boundaries between what is shared and what remains hidden.
This track feels easier on the ears. There’s a quiet sophistication in how he layers the acoustic guitar with understated accompaniment, allowing the words to remain central. It’s a song that encourages reflection without demanding it, a rare balance that Nolan manages with grace.
Lyrically, the track explores the tension of curiosity versus restraint, of knowing just enough to understand but not so much that the mystery is lost. It’s an understated contemplation of human connection, intimacy, and secrecy.
Craw
Craw carries the grit and weight of the album into a more grounded, Americana-driven space. The melody has a grudging persistence.
The lyrics hint at tension and unease. There’s an almost cinematic quality to Craw, as if it could underscore a pivotal moment in a television series like Yellowstone, where every note underscores emotion rather than spectacle.
What makes this track resonate is its duality: it’s simultaneously accessible and enigmatic. You can tap your foot along with the melody while being drawn into the emotional gravity that Nolan crafts beneath the surface. There’s a quiet weariness here, a sense of past grudges or unresolved history that lingers in the air, but Nolan doesn’t force the narrative, he merely opens the door and lets you step inside.
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You’ve Changed
You’ve Changed turns inward. Nolan’s voice is tender, and restrained, delivering lines like “No one could hold a candle up to you” with a weight that feels both personal and universal. It’s the kind of lyric that resonates because it evokes memories of someone irreplaceable, someone whose absence or presence shapes the contours of your life.
Musically, the acoustic arrangement allows space for the vocals to breathe, with subtle hints of piano and strings accentuating the emotional currents without overwhelming them.
There’s a reflective sadness to You’ve Changed, but it’s not despairing. It’s the quiet acknowledgment of impermanence. The recognition that people evolve, circumstances shift, and yet the impressions they leave remain etched in memory.
Will the Lord
On Will the Lord, Nolan slows the rhythm even further, crafting a hymn-like meditation that feels like you’re searching for something. The refrain, “Will the Lord have mercy on me?” is delivered in a way that acknowledges vulnerability and uncertainty.
The instrumentation mirrors this quiet intensity. The acoustic guitar strums gently, almost hesitantly, while subtle piano chords punctuate the spaces between lines, giving the song an almost sacred resonance. There’s a sense of tension in the simplicity, a feeling that beneath the calm exterior lies a profound internal dialogue. Nolan’s vocal timbre carries a reflective weariness.
Lyrically, the track grapples with accountability, introspection, and the human desire for grace. It feels intimate yet universal, as though Nolan is both speaking to himself and to anyone willing to listen.
Bravado
Bravado is the centrepiece of The Lonely Petunia, and it feels timeless from the first note. The song carries a sense of maturity, like someone reflecting on their own past with both honesty and acceptance, without succumbing to sentimentality.
Subtle string motifs shimmer in the background, accentuating moments of tension or release without ever drawing focus away from the storytelling. Bravado stands out not for grandeur, but for its intimacy and clarity. It’s one of those songs that feels unearthed rather than constructed, carrying the weight of lived experience.
Fading Fast
The album closes with Fading Fast, a track that leans into shadow and murkiness. From the first note, there’s a sense of quiet despair, a feeling that time itself is slipping through fingers that can barely hold onto it. It’s not dramatic in the conventional sense, there’s no cathartic release, but the darkness here is profoundly affecting.
Musically, the track relies on subtle instrumentation to amplify its mood. Acoustic guitar lines are deliberate, mirroring the instability the lyrics imply, while faint piano and string textures drift through the background like echoes of past moments. Nolan’s songwriting here is unflinching: he doesn’t soften the despair, but neither does he exaggerate it. There’s honesty in the way he allows the track to breathe, letting the listener sit with the weight of fading, of endings, and of the inexorable passage of time.
Nolan’s strength lies in his ability to craft songs that are both intimate and universal, music that asks the listener to feel, to consider, and to linger in the quiet aftermath. The album closes as it began: with presence, patience, and a truth that resonates long after the music stops.
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JACK NOLAN
THE LONELY PETUNIA
Track List
1. Always 4:19
2. Extraordinary 4:26
3. The Less You Want To Know 3:36
4. Craw 4:18
5. You’ve Changed 2:43
6. Will The Lord Have Mercy On Me 3:53
7. Bravado 3:33
8. Fading Fast 3:57
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ALBUM CREDITS
Artist: Jack Nolan
Release Title: The Lonely Petunia
Format: Digital Album
Release Date: 24 October
Genre: Roots, Folk, Blues, Americana
Sounds Like: Father John Misty,
Justin Townes Earle,
The Handsome Family
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Follow JACK NOLAN
Website – Instagram – Facebook
Spotify – YouTube – Apple Music
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Press Release 10th October 2024 (below) HERE
JACK NOLAN
‘THE LONELY PETUNIA’
Album due 24th October
Latest single off the album
‘EXTRAORDINARY’
released today
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