Friend Zone –  Josh Christina (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

I don’t care what anyone says about their preferred music, what they tell you is hot and what is not, where their musical comfort zones lie, you break out some groove driven, sassy, old school rock and roll and people are going to dance. There is probably something going on with the laws of physics, a primal connection which means that even after all these years of evolution, you hear that honky-tonk piano, that low slung groove, that bass and beat boogie, and you have no choice but to cut a rug, throw some crazy shapes, flip your wig…I’m not up with the kids modern parlance but the bottom line is that people are going to hit the dance floor hard.

Friend Zone has everything that has ensured that R&B (not the pop-pap, girl group genre of recent times, but the older, cooler bar room country-blues-rock party) has survived into the present day. Piano keys get a good bashing, guitar riffs drive, the rhythm section become a groovesome rock and roll powerhouse and on top of that the lyrics prove that whilst the sentiment is as old as the hills, the language can still be bang up to date.

If there really is nothing new under the sun, then why not revisit the music of the past? Forget breaking new ground and trying to be all cutting edge and “out there,” Josh Christina proves that sometimes it is enough to celebrate what has gone before, revive the classic sounds and whilst its okay to give it a polish and a new sense of purpose, essentially we are in the realms of “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.” Friend Zone proves beyond a doubt that rock and roll is far from broken.