Jo-Jo
Jo-Jo
It sounds like perhaps Satan was caught during a cell phone conversation in the opening to “Blow Up,” a face-peeling tune that gets a nice kick in the ass from lead singer Billy Keaton’s thinly layered tenor. Bassist Pete Sison keeps the low end in check while guitarist Mike Lynchard chirps, chips, and scrapes bone with his gritty pickin’s. “Kill Control” starts off sounding a little like the jazzy “Birdland,” and then staggers into an unworldly chorus featuring drummer Will Hunt’s guttural call and response vocals under B.K.’s understated lead. Production on this track is The Juice, just complex enough. “Whadaysa” jumps into a quick-rap groove with the lyric “what did you say/did you say what I think you said/I got my mind on the thoughts that I thought I read” screaming out of the mix.
The insanely spiraling bass and guitar lines in “Knees” bleed into a nervous snare beat with Sison’s warped note-bending. Part skate-thrash and just a tad influenced by Kurt and Da Boys, there are more colors in this picture than your average aggro project. “Sunshine” and “Good-Bye” feature the rambling, pig-squealing stylings of Lynchard in all of its slow-grind fury. At times, the music seems to roll under its own impetus, with the band members helplessly pulled into the vortex. “Waste” is buoyed by bright harmonies and trips a little in a psychedelic vein ala Jane’s Addiction. These guys know their way around their instruments and seem to delight in the foreplay of a musical orgasm, varying tempos between sensuous ebb and throbbing stutter. Check ‘em out. Jo Jo, 40 E. Spruce Street, Orlando, FL 32804
