To call Jim Jones a punk-blues dynamo is something of an understatement. Having already fronted three epic bands since the mid-Eighties in Thee Hypnotics, Black Moses and the Jim Jones Revue, he’s now ready to unleash the debut album by his latest combo, Jim Jones & The Righteous Mind. Super Natural, happily enough, shows no evidence of diminishing returns though and is actually considerably more than is needed to prove that Jones is still riding the garage rocket.
The opening track, “Dreams”, comes roaring through the speakers like an air raid. Primal and gritty rock’n’roll with fire and brimstone vocals, it opens up the Righteous Mind’s sonic stall with gusto. Swaggering and sleazy tunes follow with Jones’s yelps and howls of encouragement, duelling guitars with Malcolm Toon and a voodoo beat from Phil Martini’s sticks. It’s incendiary stuff that channels the spirit of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Tav Falco and Gallon Drunk into a sonic cacophony that aims straight at the guts with its raw and giddy ambience.
“Aldecide” and “Boil Yer Blood” may be loud and lairy highlights with a swaggering menace that can’t be ignored. But picking out particular tunes on Super Natural feels a bit churlish, given the consistently high-quality adrenalin-fuelled groove. It’s not quite all white-hot punk-blues sounds: towards the end of the disc “Shallow Grave” and “Everyone But Me” turn down the volume if not the menace. Whoozy and disconcerting ballads, they even give Toon the chance to lay out some melancholy sounds with his pedal steel as Jones croons things out.
An album as feisty and cliché-free as Super Natural is a rarity these days. However, given the similar magnificence of the Righteous Mind’s live show, it’s unlikely to be a flash in the pan and that can only be a good thing.
Overleaf: watch the video of “Aldecide”
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