As with the first two TJJR albums, piano driven rhythms
reminiscent of Jerry Lee Lewis are never far away. On The Savage Heart, new keyboardist
Henri Herbert has taken charge of the ivories and has managed to put his own
stamp on the record.
Album opener It’s Gotta be About Me comes at you
with all the subtlety of a sharp kick to the balls.
The keyboards lead the way, followed by heavy, in-your-face guitars,
with Jones doing what he does best, delivering defiant vocals with a vicious
propensity we have come to expect.
7 Times Around the Sun once again recalls the Bad
Seeds, in the form of the call-and-response vocals we have come to associate
with Cave’s seminal band.
The pace of the album doesn’t slow with Where Da
Money Go providing dynamic keyboards that dare the rest of the band to come
along for the ride, a challenge they duly accept. Lyrically he seems to be delivering a
scornful message to the bankers that have ruined the economy and shafted the working man in the process, “you were always a dick, but now you crossed
the line.”
Traditionally r ‘n’ r bands of this ilk can be
questionable when it comes to slower songs, this isn’t the case with TJJR, who
have delivered on both In and Out of Harms Way and Midnight Oceans and The
Savage Heart. Chain
Gang is a slow-building blues number, which sees the band using their trademark stop-start guitars to good effect
on a more downbeat song, that recalls the swamp rock style of Beasts of Bourbon, particularly their cover of The Rolling Stone's - Cocksucker Blues.
TJJR have delivered their best album to date by
producing a stomping album which showcases the band at its most exhilarating,
simply doing what they do better than any other band around at present.They’ve taken rock ‘n’ roll from the 1950’s cranked it up a few notches, turning songs into irrepressible punk behemoths that dare you to come along for the ride.
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