Back in August 2001, when I reviewed
\nQuintessential Honey<\/i>, the second album from Johnson
\nBrothers, I exhorted them to never lose their creative spirit. I
\nliked the fact that I was hearing a band who was willing to take
\nall styles of music and merge them into something unique –
\nsomething that would have A&R people at labels soiling
\nthemselves in shock, because this music didn’t fit a particular
\nmold.<\/p>\n
In the past year, the band – led by vocalist Aaron Pickering –
\nhas undergone some changes, not the least of which is they’ve pared
\nthemselves down to a lean four-piece outfit. Their lates EP,
\nUno!<\/i>, shows that their music has changed as well. Gone are
\nthe funky jams that made
\nQuintessential Honey<\/i> such a unique disc to listen to – and,
\nfrankly, I miss that. While this EP is no failure, it does suggest
\nthat Johnson Brothers have moved closer to mainstream… damn.<\/p>\n
Granted, there are only five songs on this disc – and one of
\nthese is featured twice, in electric and acoustic versions. And,
\ngranted, their last effort was such a complex work that it took
\nmore than one listen to fully appreciate what Johnson Brothers were
\ntrying to accomplish. So I’m willing to concede that, had
\nUno!<\/i> been longer, I would have had a clearer understanding
\nof what Pickering and crew were trying to accomplish this time
\naround.<\/p>\n
Ah, but five songs are all I have to work with, and it just
\nfeels like it’s not enough. Things really don’t start cooking for
\nthe band until the third track, the electric version of “A Long
\nDay,” refueling memories of just how good this band is. The
\nfollowing track, “(C’mon) Inside,” is also well done, suggesting
\nthe band was starting to get a feel of this new stylistic
\nshift.<\/p>\n
If only they had asserted themselves as strongly right out of
\nthe gate. While the first two tracks, “Head Full Of Stars” and “One
\nTrick Pony,” are hardly failures, their more outright rock tones
\n(and abandonment of harmony vocals – at least for the time being)
\ndon’t grab the listener and hold them in the way that Johnson
\nBrothers are capable of. Sure, the final three tracks (including a
\nbeautiful acoustic rendition of “A Long Day”) make the journey more
\nthan worthwhile, but when you have only 16 minutes of music to
\noffer, every second is vital.<\/p>\n
This isn’t to say that
\nUno!<\/i> isn’t worth your time, or that Johnson Brothers have
\nmade an incorrect career move. But I’m still on the fence as to
\nwhether this is indeed a good move for the band. By giving up the
\nmusical jambalaya that made up their last album, Pickering and crew
\ncome closer to sounding like every other band on the radio today –
\nand, in all honesty, it was their uniqueness that drew me to them
\nin the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6620],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-37446","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-johnson-brothers","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37446"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}