REVIEW: Jonah Leatherman — Jonah Leatherman (LP)
Alternative rock idealism has always been dependent on the concept of artists remaining the same throughout the whole of their career whilst adhering to somewhat anti-pop standards around every turn, but I don’t get the idea this is something that appeals to Jonah Leatherman at all. The Indiana-based band flirts with a lot of classic alternative territory in tracks like “Strings,” “Couldn’t Find Any Reason,” and “Looking Glass,” all of which can be found on their self-titled debut album, but at no point do they reject the basic pop model in favor of being deliberately on the outside of the norm. Jonah Leatherman give us an iconic sound from a different angle here and don’t fail to bring forth plenty of rock n’ roll muscle along the way.
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/jonahleathermanmusic/
“Between the Lines,” “Moody Judy,” and “Westward the Wagons” are all pretty straightforward in style, but their compositional construction starts and ends with the duality of the lyrics and music. There are never less than two different narratives coming together in this record at once, usually one relating to the personality of a song and the other feeling like poetic commentary typically sourced from the beats, and yet Jonah Leatherman never sound like they’re struggling to find some common ground in their work. This is a very cohesive LP by my standards, perhaps made all the more so because of the ground that the band is able to cover without having to use progressive themes as a linchpin.
I love the way tone and texture have equal footing in tracks like “Castle Stones” and “Mourning Glory,” and it really lends a lot to the atmospheric feel of the harmonies that the vocalist can weave together so seamlessly in the post-punk-inspired material like the aforementioned “Between the Lines.” I hear shades of Screaming Trees-esque darkness lurking beneath the surface-level cosmetics of this album, and still, it’s hard to go through this tracklist without acknowledging the faint optimism that our leading man offers seemingly when the backdrop he’s straddling couldn’t get much gloomier. Juxtaposition is too often misused by a lot of players on the mainstream side of the dial, but this is an act that definitely knows what they’re doing in this department — and doesn’t mind showing us as much here.
BANDCAMP: https://jonahleatherman.bandcamp.com/album/jonah-leatherman
I just discovered Jonah Leatherman with the release of their eponymous rookie LP, and I think that if they’re able to avoid over-refinement of the basic skillset they’re already working with as a collective then I think they’re going to find that the college radio market has been waiting for a band of their persuasion to come around for a hot minute now. Jonah Leatherman is an experimental album that begs for us to ignore the status quo as it exists in rock n’ roll today and embrace something just a touch more cerebral than what the traditional recipe might have called for and in the grander scheme of things I find it to be a very provocative effort from a group well on their way out of the underground.
Colin Jordan
