The Mike Jacoby Electric Trio – Welcome To The Family
I’m not a big fan of self-produced albums. An artist usually needs a separate set of ears to cut the fat away from a project. Things can become too top-heavy, too “hot” in its production, or have too many of one type of song & not enough of others – balance. Pacing. However, Mike Jacoby (vocals/guitars/piano/organ) has done an admirable job with his well-produced, sonically sharp album.
Opening numbers “Welcome To the Family” & the energetic “The 75/24 Split” are pure modern rock with melody, guitar flash & torrential drums. Who gets the 1% that’s left over after the split?
There are 11-cuts on their 3rd LP, Welcome To The Family (Drops July 31/Independent). Recorded in Long Beach, CA, the collection is comprised of Americana rock with doses of country & folk mixed with ‘90s indie-rock spirit. The themes are love, loss, humor, resilience, & America as it is today. The songs themselves unfold with empathy, a reflection of personal & social fractures & heartbreak. Each with a generous scoop of classic rock traditions.
The clever “Red, White & Blues” has lots of musical color (no pun intended) in its arrangement. The varied guitar textures & wall-of-sound vocals are presented impressively. It’s old-fashioned rock but never sounds old. It does have, with its shockingly good full sound from a trio of musicians, the spirit of the garage rock masters that few remember today. The Electric Prunes (“I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night”), Strawberry Alarm Clock (“Me & the Township”), The Easybeats (“Friday On My Mind”), The Outsiders (“Time Won’t Let Me”) & the Count Five (“Psychotic Reaction”). Music that puts a smile on your face.
They have a wonderfully developed diversified feel. “Tell Them” has Alex Chilton & The Box Tops (“I Must Be The Devil”) pop rawness & Memphis-pop rock enamel. A bit slower, they add a tint of dark words to “You & Me Both” — swaddled in a Tom Waits, Lee Hazelwood-type vocalization. Emblematic of their narrative styles.
There are some missteps, but average listeners won’t notice. So, let’s not focus on those. Every bag of apples has one or two worms, or a bruise. These result in my concerns about self-produced projects. Yet the production is good & at times, while some songs are over-developed, I’ll take over-developed instead of a thin, spare sound anyway. Mike Jacoby delivers assured vocals throughout. The band strikes the anvil with each swing of their tight & confident playing.
Highlights – “Welcome To the Family,” “The 75/24 Split,” “Red, White & Blues,” “Tell Them,” “You & Me Both,” “85%,” “Fine American Craftsmanship,” & “And It’s Gone.”
Musicians – Don Read (bass/bgv), Mike Levin (drums/percussion/bgv) with Art Bailey (piano on 3 cuts).
Color image courtesy of the band’s website. CD @ Amazon & Bandcamp + https://mikejacobymusic.com/home