There aren’t many tasks as a recording artist than making that undeniably personal LP, and for the southern rock act Robert Jon & the Wreck, it’s more than obvious that they didn’t come into the project with intentions of giving critics and fans anything less than their best. In their new album Ride Into the Light, Robert Jon and his band set out to cast a declaration of war against the southern rock establishment with some downhome grooves that appeal to the genre’s old school more than they do the alternative new school, and for me, its eight songs add up to pure passion no matter how many times they’ve been played.
URL: https://robertjonandthewreck.com/
The structures to most of the songs in this LP are actually pretty simple in comparison to what I would normally expect from a Southern rock album, but at the same time, the melodies in compositions like the title track, “Bring Me Back Home Again,” “One of a Kind” and “Don’t Look Down” are enough to make any record sound incredibly multidimensional. You don’t have to be an expert on genres to pick up on the diversity of the band’s influences in this tracklist; if you listen to the opening jaunt “Pain No More” alone, I think you’ll realize just how much this group loves music in general.
A righteous rhythm adds some extra pressure to the unfurling of verses in “Who Can You Love,” one of the more single-ready works included in Ride Into the Light, and I think this element of its production accentuates the lyrical mood better than any instrumental component ever could have exclusively. Robert Jon uses his abilities behind the mic not to intrude upon the greater band’s sound but to emphasize the intricacies that give it such rich vitality, which is something I would like to hear other frontmen in this genre try on their own sometime.
The tracklist flow feels intentionally uneven in a couple of different spots in this album, but by choosing to constantly break up the fluidity of the music with tempo changes and tonal differences that separate one song from the next, I think you could make the argument that Robert Jon & the Wreck were able to deliver a much more well-rounded LP than some of their closest competitors in the mainstream would have in similar circumstances. The adrenaline is always teetering towards an eruption here, and that’s difficult to pull off in a piece like the title track.
A ripping sonic ride for roots music enthusiasts and the casual passerby the same, I have to say that Robert Jon & the Wreck’s Ride Into the Light is an interesting first step towards stardom if I’ve ever heard one before. It’s a critical masterpiece in some areas and a limited take on what the band could potentially accomplish if given a bigger budget and a little more room to grow than they’ve already been afforded, but no matter what anyone in the press dubs this LP, it’s one of my favorites to have debuted this year
Heather Savage
