12 for 2012

Top albums of the year lists... is it just me or does it get progressively more difficult as the years blur together?

Handily, Killing Joke have anticipated the problem for me with 2012.   So that’s on the list then.

Let’s see

1.    Killing Joke – 2012
It sounded like it might be a bit close to concept album territory from the publicity and all the usual corruption and ecological collapse themes are well to the fore here, on one of KJ’s most coherent sets.  Like a fine wine KJ just get better with age.

2.    Jim Jones Revue – Savage Heart
Brilliantly delivered manical rock ‘n’ roll.  Perhaps not quite the equal of ‘Burning Your House Down’, but let’s face it, that was some act to follow.

3.    Guile – Alone On The West
Marvellous dark psychedelic debut trip from the criminally under-rated Staffordshire band.

4.    Stranglers - Giants 
At its best, as good as anything from the band this side of the millennium.

5.    Mark Lanegan Band – Blues Funeral
Most rounded effort yet from the man most likely to appear on someone else’s album.

6.    Barry Adamson – I Will Set You Free
Uneven, but when it’s good, it’s far more satisfying that Magazine’s own 'Know Thyself' return.

7.    Brian James Grand Cru – Chateau Brian
The other side of the 35th anniversary of ‘Damned, Damned, Damned’ – the man who wrote those riffs in reflective mood, with little more that an acoustic guitar and piano. Somewhat erratic, but worth it for 'Crawlin' My Way Back Home'.

8.    Peaking Lights – Lucifer Dub
After two pleasingly blissed out bass driven pop albums this venture into dub territory, was the logical next step and with it Peaking Lights appear to have made the album that's been lurking within them all along.

9.    Iggy Pop – Apres
Iggy Pop sounding far more comfortable rumbling through a set of easy listening standards, that being a Stooge and following up some of the finer moments from 'Avenue B'.

10.    Jah Wobble & Keith Levine – Ying & Yang
It’s difficult not to like anything with that internal organ shaking bass, and here Wobble & Levine have come up with a far more interesting album than PiL’s ‘This Is PiL’.

11.    Meteors – Doing The Lords Work
You know what you’re getting with The Meteors.  That doesn’t make it any less welcome.  When you can play a guitar like Paul Fenech, this is what you should be doing.  Not sure about their cover of ‘Paranoid’ but time spent listening to Fenech play guitar is never wasted.

12.    The Orb and Lee Perry
Worth a mention, just for the wonderfully bizarre partnership.  Working with The Orb makes Lee Perry look like a regular guy.  Well, almost...

13.    Joy Division – Warsaw
Not new.  Not from 2012 and not even an official release. But inspired by catching Peter Hook’s The Light, I went back to this album, one I probably hadn’t heard in years, and found it stands up rather well.

Bubbling under;
Stan Ridgeway – Mr. Trouble; clearly being indulged in the hope he turns into Tom Waits,
Brian Jonestown Massacre – Aufheben; more drone rock par excellence.

Push comes to shove, Killing Joke, Mark Lanegan Band and Guile make the top three, in no particular order.  

But overall I'm going with 'Blues Funeral' as the stand out album of 2012.

Jim Jones Revue & Lewis Floyd Henry 02 Academy Birmingham

One man band Lewis Floyd Henry really does look like the most genial of New York buskers – think a down on his luck Hendrix trying to make a buck playing Heavy Trash with a pram mounted amp and a tiny bass drum and cymbal.  If that sounds dodgy, it’s the guitar that saves it all.  Loud, dirty and played with casual abandon.  Lewis is having a party and he really doesn’t seem to care if the audience are with him or not.

In fact most of the audience are.  His brand of fucked up street, punk & blues, gets a deserved good response.  A well chosen support act, worth checking out.  Oh yeah – he talks to the pram as well!

Unless you’ve spent the last 18 months under a rock you’ll know that The Jim Jones Revue have married the maniac piano driven rock ‘n’ roll of Jerry Lee Lewis and the er maniac guitar driven rock ‘n’ roll of the MC5 to magnificent effect on latest album ‘Burning Your House Down’.

For the full Jim Jones Revue effect, of course you have to see them live.  Right from the off you know this band fancy themselves.  And rightly so!  Anyone who comes on to ‘Raw Power’ has to be able to deliver in full and with guitarists circa London Calling era Clash and frontman Jim Jones giving Grinderman a run for the title of ‘sleaziest suit wearer in rock’, they look the part.  But can they cut it?

The answer comes in 2 minutes 30 seconds dead, in the shape of opening number ‘Dishonest John’.  As a statement of intent it doesn’t come much better than this, screaming guitar riffs and falling down the stairs piano hammering compete to demand your full attention.  If this doesn’t give you an immediate adrenalin rush then you’d better get your coat.

Yes it’s clichéd, dumb rock ‘n’ roll, with all the cock rock posing you can handle.  And then more of the same.  But it’s done with such messianic zeal that it works.  It really works.  The twin attack of guitar and demented boogie-woogie piano soon has the band and audience working each other into a sweat as they run through ‘Cement Mixer’, ‘Burning Your House Down’, ‘Shoot First’ and ‘Elemental’.

All that and they have seamlessly brought in a new keyboard player.  With the piano being so fundamental to the band’s sound, it’s a real credit to new boy Henri Herbert that there’s no discernable change to the Jim Jones Revue live onslaught.  Just to prove it the band finished with a devastating version of ‘The Princess & The Frog’ from their debut album.  Still a remarkable song, still a remarkable band.

However, to be absolutely honest (John), this may not have been Jim Jones Revue at their absolute peak.  Being a rescheduled show it felt like it took the band a while to get up a head of steam as they seemed to be battling with a less than perfect onstage sound.  

That quibble aside and despite (or because of?) all the obvious referencing in their music – and along with the usual suspects, Gallon Drunk really ought to get a nod – it’s hard to disagree with the current thinking that right now The Jim Jones Revue are the best balls out rock ‘n’roll band in the country.  Simply unstoppable.

 

 

 

 Go here for live footage from the gig.