This album already appeared in my round up review of 2022 as one of my top 30 albums of the year, despite not having posted a review earlier in the year. The album was on heavy rotation towards the end of the 2022 and since the turn of the year, it has been my go to album virtually every day. I can’t get enough of it. No More Good News? While that album title pretty much sums up exactly how I felt about 2022, it certainly doesn’t sum up the music of Jo Jo and the Teeth – the music on this album is ALL Good News.
Coming at you from the Isle of Wight via the USA, Jo Jo & the Teeth are creating a stir across the country, much like a previous band from those parts who were hyped to the hilt after 2 singles. In my opinion, the album from said band didn’t live up to the expectations of the two singles, with a lack of tunes and imagination on show. An opinion which I seem to be in the minority with given the reaction at their sold out gig in Glasgow last year, from my perspective a clinical soulless performance which I was left cold after. The same cannot be said for the ten songs on No More Good News. Each one is packed with soul, and hooks abound meaning the songs stay with you all day, and into the next…
This dazzlingly flamboyant album is crammed to bursting with gloriously soaring and soulful blues-tinged rock anthems, topped with a glittering glam sheen, each song sparkling with a certain bombast, a vigorously beating, sometimes broken, heart at its core, and a soul-baring honesty in the song writing. As for that vocal. Wow. This is the sort of powerful voice that gets lauded across the music industry, solo names like Adele and Amy Winehouse and their emotional torch songs get shouted from the rooftops, why is it then that when someone with a voice this potent and commanding fronts a rock band, they don’t get the same level of attention? If anyone has the power to change that it is Jo Jo and the Teeth.
The band hit fifth gear from the off with the thundering glam rock stomp that is album’s opening track, My Babe, pounding drums and glam riffs introducing Jo Jo’s raucously honeyed vocal for the first time. Every subsequent tune on the album creating an addictive earworm (I can’t remember the last day I woke up and didn’t have Don’t Get Too Heavy making its presence known), the initial 0-60 rush staying with you for the duration of the album, the album’s title track also lodging itself immediately into your subconscious, I guarantee you’ll be singing the lamenting refrain endlessly after listening to this song just once, despite the lyrics being laden with sorrow and regret, the melody and searing guitar licks give the song a celebratory feel.
Even the slower songs build a tension and feeling that at any time, the fuel injection could ignite and the song hit hyperdrive. Hellhound is a case in point, a song with its theme based on depression “there’s a big black dog and she’s nipping at my heels”, its laidback rootsy blues soon developing into a mighty statement of intent, the mid song break allowing a regrouping, subsequently the song ultimately packing a hefty bite as it builds into a potent and forceful fuck you.
We’re Just Animals feels autobiographical, like a musical baring of the soul, the chorus is another dynamic mix of powerfully strident vocals and soaring guitar licks and riffs, coming over like a resolute statement of intent taking things up a level from the verses. Moonchild plays vocals off against each other in its laidback dream-rock which wouldn’t sound out of place in an episode of True Blood, before the guitars rise to soaring peak and fall, mixing effectively with layered backing vocals. Every time another song kicks in, I keep having these niggling thoughts – “this is my favourite” – then another song comes on and I change my mind again. The album throws up song after song of proper rollicking blues rock. One of the one’s that keeps sticking out though is Is This the Dream? and its questioning refrain “is this the dream dying, or is this the dream?” a question I’m sure many can relate to. Another song with a soaring guitar outro, packed with sumptuous riffing that never gets too overblown.
Jo Jo’s vocal feels warm and generous on Lungs, a song that advocates letting loose, standing up and shouting out against the rest of the world. “If you could lend me your lungs, I could really use a breathe or two right now” sings Jo Jo, in this defiant you and me against the world anthem… “its just me and you, so won’t you lend me your lungs…”. Another few couplet’s you’ll have lodged in your brain come from single Don’t Get Too Heavy, another singalong anthem that I can imagine filling stadiums, with Jo Jo leading the charge singing “Don’t Get too Heavy” before the chorus of “Dream on dream weaver, I know your heart it feels so empty, you’re not alone” being chanted along by a mass heaving throng in the pit. This is a classic in the making. A Hungry Love brings the pace down initially before doing what the band do best and filling your eardrums with a glorious mix of raw energy and consummately flawless rock and roll in this edifying boost of positive vitality.
The album closes on a real tearjerker in the form of the reflective Oh Brother, raw emotion in the poignancy of the heart-rending lyrics, matched with suitably empathetic acoustic guitars, a looking back on past lives and wishing for a future “running wild and free” like carefree children away from all the stresses and vagaries of life adulthood brings. Utterly beautiful.
Hopefully the remarkable bluesy rock juggernaut of Jo Jo & the Teeth, with the phenomenally striking vocal of Jo Jo O’Donoghue soon become the world dominating force to be reckoned with they deserve to be. I have always respected and trusted a certain Andy Blade (if you haven’t read his autobiography – I highly recommend it), and he has seen something that inspired and excited him in this motley crew having recruited them as his band in the current incarnation of the wonderful Eater. Everyone else, be like Andy Blade, take note… Jo Jo & the Teeth are here, they are coming for you, do not resist, let them in.