The Jim Jones Revue - The Savage Heart

Rock’n’roll isn’t dead, it’s merely been left in a daze by the waves of mediocrity crashing into it. But the gospel according to Little Richard, the word as told by Chuck Berry, the parish newsletter as published by The MC5, will forever form the basis of what is good and holy. So long as you do it right.

To reference another sacred text, namely the truth as proclaimed by Bananarama: it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it. Ask the world whether it needs another garage-rock album and the world will sigh, and say the only thing it wants less is another album from a floppy-haired troubadour with an acoustic guitar, a heavy social conscience and difficulty getting a date. Play the world ‘The Savage Heart’ and the only suggestion will be why all albums aren’t like this.

The Jim Jones Revue do it right. They remind you that you need this. You need unrestrained, unreconstructed music with its heart in the 1950s and its head having absorbed all of the good bits from the litany of bands who built on the original foundations. In a biofuel world, The Jim Jones Revue are diesel-drinking, smoke-spewing, bar-room trashing atavists, who manage the not inconsiderable task of being totally serious and more than a little tongue-in-cheek at the same time. In fact, the last band to do this kind of musical reductionism this well were Grinderman, with whom The Jim Jones Revue share some personnel - Jim Sclavunos takes up production duties here having also been there for the last album.

You can definitely understand him seeing the kinship. From the Ronettes-like - if the Ronettes were 300lb Stevedores - group harmonics of ‘Seven Times Around The Sun’, to the death rattles and gothic keys of ‘In And Out Of Harms Way’, to the squalling duel betwixt piano and guitar that provides the perfect backdrop for the screaming ‘Where Da Money Go’, ‘The Savage Heart’ crackles with riotous energy, pummels you with musical artillery and gleefully displays a streak of jet-black wit.

Plus, and it’s easy to overlook, but songs like ‘Midnight Oceans And The Savage Heart’, playing out as a funereal version of Del Shannon’s ‘Runaway’, gloomily doo-wooping towards destiny, are demonstrative of a band doing something way, way above mere homage.

It’s easy to criticise when things sound hackneyed. When things don’t, despite following a path well trodden they’ve built a cycle-path alongside, there should be no end to the praise. So hear this: ‘The Savage Heart’ couldn’t be more vital. What The Jim Jones Revue do is good. The way they do it is nothing short of brilliant.