The Jim Jones Revue - Burning Your House Down

The Jim Jones Revue wear their influences on their collective sleeve, with their visceral music clearly based around the classic rock and roll formula of early greats like Little Richard. However, this rock and roll basis has been injected with the force of relatively more modern hard rock offerings. The result is Burning Your House Down, an album brimming with vibrant blues-rock stomps that often tread the lines of punk and early heavy metal, whilst still maintaining that boogie-rock shuffle. This seamless blend of the styles creates something really quite unique, where the thundering guitars are rivalled by the wild piano and the vocals are belted out with venomous intensity – especially so on single ‘High Horse’. Indeed, the bass driven ‘Elemental’ genuinely sounds like the hypothetical aftermath of Elvis binging on early Metallica, whereas the sinister shuffle of ‘Premeditated’s guitar riff is bolstered by an unrelenting piano and a scorching chorus. The title track itself provides the album with a bluesy slunk that is heavy enough to merit its hilariously aggressive title.

Burning Your House Down is a belligerent record throughout, but the songs are well crafted and still maintain a sense of melody. It’s rare that a band are able to capture such vigour in a studio, but The Jim Jones Revue showcase all the dynamism and force of a live gig, resulting in a brilliantly animated album from start to finish.