Blue-collar rock will always have a place in the hearts of music lovers not because of its flash but because of its substance, and I think that’s one of the main reasons why people are flocking to Jonah Leatherman as much as they are right now. Jonah Leatherman’s sound isn’t old school or even much of a throwback to classic alternative rock so much as it strips out a lot of synthesized elements that have become all too familiar to fans of the genre in the 2020s. This is music without plasticity, and it’s worth getting hyped over.
Volume is more important in songs like “Sunhat” and “Couldn’t Find Any Reason” than virtuosity is, and that’s why you’ll find a lot more of it here than you will any indulgent soloing. I get the feeling Jonah Leatherman doesn’t really care about getting a lot of spicy guitar work into the mix as much as they do intensity and presence, which is something I wish I was able to say about most of the bands that are making rock n’ roll right now. This is refreshingly simple and much more centered than what I thought I might hear today.
Egos are not a roadblock for Jonah Leatherman they’ve got one of the more selfless profiles that I’ve come across as a rock critic lately. They’re not struggling to get around one signature part in “Strings” or “Looking Glass,” and songs like “Westward the Wagons” and “Moody Judy” make sense because they’re presented by musicians rather than stylized faces with a much more theatrical part to play here. Forget the notion that this is all the foundation of something visual – this is a record that sticks with musical endeavors, and if that makes it old school, call me an OG.
Every instrumental part in this mix has got some presence to it, and I think that the fact Jonah Leatherman is so intent on getting us to feel every inch of physical power they can produce makes this debut album worth listening to by itself. “Mourning Glory” and “Between the Lines” alone would have convinced me that this band was onto something special, but in tandem with the other content here I think it’s very obvious that we’re listening to a group of artists that can be trusted to run with our confidence in the near future.
I didn’t know what Jonah Leatherman’s first album was going to sound like, but I can tell you now that I won’t be happy until I’ve had the opportunity to see and hear what they can do on a stage in the future. This entire outing feels like a greater tease for what they might be able to do if given all of the spotlight on a stage to themselves, and as much as I think this is an LP unlikely to fall out of favor with rockers anytime soon, I’m very eager to get to know this band’s sound in the flesh.
Chadwick Easton