Thursday 21 December 2017

Jim Jones & The Righteous Mind - Super Natural


(This review first appeared in issue #67 of Shindig! magazine.)

MaSonic CD/LP

Jim Jones has always looked across the Atlantic for inspiration in his thirty years of music making. From channelling The Stooges in Thee Hypnotics, playing homage to soul and funk in Black Moses, to the good time rock 'n' roll of The Jim Jones Revue. This latest incarnation embraces the dark-hearted voodoo and rhythms of New Orleans.

As always there's an emphasis on volume and sheer sonic attack. The louder tracks may take your head off, but alongside the ear-bludgeoning guitars are perhaps the best lyrics of Jones' career, delivered with a gravelly growl Captain Beefheart would have been proud of. The effect is akin to Nick Cave fronting an art-rock version of The Band armed with stacked amps and Big Muff pedals. Superstition, catharsis, darkness, dynamics, the ghosts of music past and pointers to a new future, it's all there. Swamp rock Jim, but not as we know it!

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