Today’s review, O Ye DV Faithful, is called Why We Actually Listen To The CDs Instead Of Just Reading The Promotional Material. See, I have to admit something: if all I had done was read the promotional flyer that came with the new release from Chicago’s Josh And The Empty Pockets, I would have blown them off; it\u2019s not a major selling point for me that their music is featured on several Nickelodeon shows. Believe it or not, though, I do try to listen to everything I’m sent, at least once — and in this case, I’m very very glad I did. Because Under The Bed<\/i> is tight, melodic, layered, harmony-drenched rock\/pop, and one of the better new CDs I’ve heard this year.<\/p>\n
JatEP started life out as a Buddy Holly And The Crickets tribute band, and the influence of clean, simple pop music with heavy harmony still shows. Their sound is reminiscent of The Muckrakers, Cheap Trick, or a more melodic Barenaked Ladies. It helps a whole lot that their songs have enough hooks to land Leviathan, and their musicianship is great, too. (Specific kudos to lead vocalist Josh Solomon, whose guitar playing is a joy to listen to. He can flick back and forth from acoustic to fuzz-laden electric without losing a beat.)<\/p>\n
Under The Bed<\/i> is deceptively basic at first; it\u2019s only on repeated listenings that I realized that under the pop beats were some pretty incisive lyrics and a few neat turns of phrase. Songs like \u201cFall Right Now\u201d (the first single, a humor-laced complaint about badly timed emotional entanglement) and \u201cFreedom To Me\u201d (which gets the Stephen Stills Award for best liberal political commentary in a three-minute rock song) are full of rich imagery and a gentle wit that contrasts well with JatEP\u2019s straight-ahead style.<\/p>\n
Besides the aforementioned \u201cFall Right Now\u201d and \u201cFreedom To Me,\u201d I particularly liked the wordplay of \u201cMissteps,\u201d \u201cSide Effects,\u201d and \u201cMonsters,\u201d all of which are both great pop songs and lyrical tours-de-force.<\/p>\n
Josh And The Empty Pockets have a bright future. They play intelligent, well-crafted pop\/rock with substance that still manages to not get bogged down in its own importance. Buddy Holly would be proud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":29836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8380],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41451","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-josh-and-the-empty-pockets","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41451","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41451"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41451"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}