If you want to know the difference between rock and rock ‘n’ roll in the modern age, you could do much worse than bending your ear to Jump Jump Joan and their latest EP. This Is Us.
If rock music is monolithic, earnest, and weighty, Jump Jump Joan is groovesome; they swing and are fun. There are some lovely sonic callbacks to Blondie and The Pretenders, perhaps even The Primitives and, in their lighter moments, The Darling Buds, a bit of punk swagger here, and some pop-awareness there, but not in a way that resigns them to the past. This is forward-thinking rock (‘n’roll) music for the modern age. Simples! (As the youth might say.)
