Artist: The Jokers
Title: Rock ‘N Roll Is Alive
Genre: Hard-Rock
Release Date: 30th August 2013
Label: Steamhammer/SPV
Album Review
This is the second album by hard-rock hopefuls THE JOKERS, a band who seem as distant, musically, from their north-west England roots as it’s possible to get. The classic rock bands name-dropped as their influences - CREAM, AC/DC, LED ZEPPELIN - show lofty ambitions, but the sound is never, ever close to any of these greats. Having supported Anvil in the past, it’s fair to say that’s still the best place for them. But is it all just a good, belly-laughing, tongue in cheek parody? The name suggests so. And then there’s the cheesy album cover. Something badly drawn, pushes its way from the soil in a graveyard containing the bodies of Bon Scott and Jimi Hendrix. It just needs a band-shot of the four of them eating raw meat and doing devil-horns to complete the cliché.
Finally there’s the song titles. ‘Dr Rock Head’ anyone? Got to be a joke, right? God, it seems not.
In ‘Silver City’, the band imagine themselves with all the sex and swagger of classic cock-rock, but sound hugely limp. It’s unimaginative and uninspired. Robert Plant would be phoning his lawyer if he were ever likely to hear Wane Perry singing ‘Rock ‘N Roll Is Alive’ or feel threatened by it, such is the almost laughable attempt to match his utterly unique and genre defining yelp. Move along, young man, you are vastly out of your league here. ‘Radio’ has some decent loud and soft dynamics, and the singing sounds less hopeful and more at ease, but by the chorus it’s weighed down again in stodge and cliché. ‘Night Driver’ isn’t DEEP PURPLE’s ‘Highway Star’, and ‘Let It Rock’ fails to be WHITESNAKE. There’s a stab at a more bluesy feel on ‘Find My Way Home’ which is serviceable enough, and ‘Bring Your Love Back To Me’ is a genuine gem of genre-ballad singing and playing, again bluesy and more reserved, building nicely into what should be a showcase for their overall sound. But then it’s back down to earth on its denim-clad arse for the ghastly ‘Dr Rock Head’, which finishes this album off with a whiff of stale whisky and a packet of cheap fags.
THE JOKERS desperately want this to be their Harley Davidson, but instead it’s a knackered old 50cc relic, cobbled together from unloved and unwanted parts and sent out on the back-roads in a plume of black smoke. Not good.
Tracklist
01. Silver City
02. Rock ‘N Roll is Alive
03. Radio
04. Blood Of Ox
05. Night Driver
06. Let It Rock
07. Find My Way Home
08. Sky Line
09. N.Y.C
10. Bring Your Love Back To Me
11. Dr Rock Head
Line-up
Paul Hurst – Guitar
Simon Hurst – Bass
Wane Parry – Vocals
Chris Poole – Drums
Website
https://www.facebook.com/TheJokersUK / http://www.thejokers.com/
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 3
Sound: 3
Total: 3 / 10
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