“She Came In”? That is through the garden window and the mid-album cover song by JJ McCabe and Fallin Angel’s on their new album Presenting, is a precise pointing to a time and place JJ McCabe is mining. It is also ridiculously self-confident, because come on, who wants to draw comparisons to The Beatles upon themselves?
It would be a tottering edifice if you couldn’t back it up, but JJ isn’t an Oasis or faux beatle either, rather he is a modern talk on 1960s power pop: guitar oriented, Rickenbacker sounding popular music –or would be popular music 30 years ago.
Today, you listen to the song that follows “She Came In”, album highlight “Amazing Love” and the zoomy guitar and double tracked chorus, makes you think, well, it makes you think you should be thinking of 1960s heroes but it slips out of the tropes and stands as a sweet nd powerful testament to love indeed, and by the time you reach the guitar solo, it is all over.
There is the sense of understatement about Presenting, a feeling that JJ wants the album to speak for himself. Here is his bio: “JJ. McCabe was born with a gift for music which would carry him from his roots further then he ever dreamed possible. As a young man, his talent was recognized by Jackie Onassis and became JFK, Jr. first guitar teacher. He began traveling the east coast with the band Kinderhook Creek playing American Country Rock music. The popularity of the band grew and they opened for Bruce Springsteen, Poco, Eagles and backed-up Chuck Berry. He has continued to write his own compositions and develop his unique style. “If John Lennon was still alive and making music with the Moody Blues, this is how they would sound like !” explains Michael Jaramillo of the Great Unknown Music Expose.”
Interesting at least in that McCabe us a mainstream rocker who feels alternative. The very first song “I Wanna Rock” is less a riff lock on and more, a Joan Jett meets Tom Petty rocker, hard but not hard rocking, extremely catchy, born to sung and swung to. The second song opens with a sax solo and it is spot the influence, but after awhile that gets draggy, and you want to leave him alone. There is a sense of building bricks here but a question mark as to who built on whom.
Though around now, JJ’s main weakness becomes clear, he is great at Kiss like aphorisms to rock but seems to skim deep emotions lyrically, happy to let the music speak for itself. Is there a less smug songwriter in the world? He never shows off, leaving you to marvel at the fade to “Gimme More”.
When he does get serious with the prog-rock “The Answer” it is the only mistake on the album, and McCabe rights it soon enough. The rest of the time he most keeps to the three minute mark, hits his spots and leaves, over the other 11 tracks, he never loses his way. The band is tight but they have a straight ahead appeal that isn’t rock as we know it now, and may not be rock as it was then either. The last song on Presenting is the deeply wonderful ballad and heartbreaker “carry On” with the only vocal pyrotechnics on the album; as if Joseph was giving himself permission to let loose but was still too much the pro to do less than make every single sound at the service to the song.
McCabe is one of a kind, so much so that you think you’ve heard these songs before. But just try em once and you’ll know you’ve heard something.
Grade: A-
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