Big in Trinidad & Tobago may not sound like much but Jointpop might well change your opinion. They play a solid set of rock songs that take us way back to a time when men were men and rock gods were thick on the ground.
Gary Hector's vocals have a suitably rich and confident tone that suggests his place in rock history is already reserved. Taking a listen to the opening track, "The Irony of it All", he seems reflective just like he is looking back to better times whereas on "Monday Morning Love Situation" he does an about turn and gives us something that has hit single of today stamped all over it. Equally jaunty is "Desperate Housefly". Come to think of it, the guitars on this record sound complete. To explain, they sound like they were played all the way through rather than just looping a few chords over and over. Proper guitar playing and that's the truth. Of the rest of the tracks, melodic rock pretty much describes "The Fool" and it is none the worse for that but perhaps the cover of Thin Lizzy's "Dancing in the Moonlight" gives the clearest indication of where this band is coming from. They make good time music that is meant to be enjoyed with friends and to close the album they even throw in an anthem - "Let's Pray for Rock 'n' Roll" - to the way music used to be. In the package that the Bluesbunny got, there was even a "making of" DVD that actually made you want to get on a plane to the Caribbean.
Now that we think of it, there must be a market for Jointpop's music. There are plenty of people about with credit cards who are not actually served by what the major record companies try to sell them. Just because you have a bit less hair on top than you used to have doesn't mean that you want to listen to Harry Connick. You want music that takes you back to your youth. Music that goes well with beer not white wine spritzers. You want to be able to sing along. You want to be able to hum the melodies while you drive to that 9 to 5 job. You want it to be real. While this album has been polished a bit too much to capture the magic of their live shows, it is still cuts the mustard. Maybe that prayer for rock 'n' roll has been heard and answered after all.