With his fourth studio outing, It’s Not Going to Be Okay, Joshua Burnside departs from the experimental electronica of his recent catalogue to deliver what is some of his most vulnerable and cohesive work to date. The album as intimate as any poem you’d choose to read quietly by yourself. The Northern Irishman has delivered a stark, monochromatic study of grief, written in the immediate aftermath of the death of his close friend and fellow musician, Dean Jendoubi.
I keep the cross in the park
The jig is up when your eyelid’s shut
Don’t want to lie in the dark
Don’t want to sing with the angels
Don’t want to dance with the damned
Just want to run under the midnight sun
With the blood in my hands”
From ‘Nighttime Person’ by Joshua Burnside
But it’s not all dark as night. Recorded largely within the confines of his Belfast home, the production is intentionally skeletal. Where previous records leant on dense layering, this collection prioritises space. Burnside’s fingerpicked acoustic guitar and unvarnished vocal delivery, replete with the natural textures of his Belfast accent, sit at the very front of the mix. This technical approach creates an atmosphere that feels less like a performance and more like an overheard confidence, capturing the “natural” and “unpolished” feel where his voice is left intentionally rough around the edges.
The strength of the record lies in its rejection of grand, sweeping metaphors in favour of the mundane. Burnside treats grief as a series of everyday rituals and domestic observations across the full tracklist. ‘The Last Armchair’ stands out for its specific focus on an IKEA purchase, transforming a mass-produced object into a heavy symbol of an adulthood interrupted. ‘With You’ offers a masterclass in songwriting economy, tracing a path from shared childhood memories to the desperate, physical longing for a presence that is no longer there. ‘Something Else’ reflects on the search for meaning through coping mechanisms like binge-watching ‘The X-Files,’ while the closing track, ‘Remake,’ provides a particularly brave conclusion – a discursive, almost rambling account of the hours following a funeral that captures the exhaustion of mourning with startling accuracy.
While the subject matter is inherently heavy, the album avoids becoming voyeuristic or overly sentimental. Instead, it maintains a reserved honesty that critics have already noted as a career high. For the specialist listener even if this isn’t your area, It’s Not Going to Be Okay is a testament to the power of the stripped-back approach. Burnside has managed to document a private tragedy in a way that feels universally resonant, cementing his status as one of the most vital voices in contemporary folk.
