Search - Jerry Joseph, Jackmormons :: Conscious Contact

Conscious Contact - songs from a rock'n'roll missionary

S. D. Cavendish | London, UK | 05/01/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Jerry Joseph & The Jackmormons - you're not going to forget that name. Buy this album. I'll give it five stars.Jerry J has his own instantly recognisable sound - a voice full of passion - really great songs that are no-frills ballads with a country edge or gutsy guitar/rhythm section, jam-band rockers - those uncompromisingly honest lyrics oozing pain, sex and redemption. Altogether catchy and hummable, yet this is not commercially driven tosh. A bit scary. Are you a poet or a preacher, Mr Joseph? He looks you in the eye and you know he's been to hell and fought his way back. He's tough, but these songs give you a glimpse of the stitches where they sewed him up and the places where he still bleeds.The Jackmormons are a three-piece band based in Portland, fronted by singer-songwriter Jerry Joseph and they deserve to be hugely successful. Maybe this album will do it. They have a punishing touring schedule across the states of America, occasionally dropping in on London, England, where I saw them play the 12-Bar - Jerry wild and barefoot - and so compelling I've bought everything he's ever recorded, but this is his best."