Sweet Jonny is a garage rock band from Brighton and their debut EP ‘JSA’ draws influences from post punk and grunge. Standout track The Cliché opens up with metronomic drums and guitar, which will remind listeners of The White Stripes.
Vocalist Tom Backshall has a distinctive style, but his baritone becomes a little monotonous as you move through the tracks on the EP. Dead Famous is the only track that seems to offer us a glimpse of the potential in his vocal range. In the final track on the EP Twenty Years, Backshall’s vocals are too far up the mix, drowning out the instruments, which is a shame because Ash Turquand’s lead guitar is vibrant and exciting.
Listening to this EP, it’s clear that Sweet Jonny are proud of their inspirations. With the vocals being scarily similar to Dave Vanian’s of The Damned, their awesome guitar solos straight from Iggy and the Stooges and the opening to Twenty Years is a bit too much like Nirvana to be original.
Listeners will like this EP for its rawness and the energy of the instruments, but what the band needs to do is lose some of those all too familiar references and find their own direction.
6/10
Sweet Jonny: Facebook
