Johnny Jones and the Suffering Halos
(Wizards and Blow 2004)
Johnny Jones and the Suffering Halos
(Wizards and Blow 2004)
From Aural Innovations #30 (February 2005)
Johnny Jones and the Suffering Halos hail from Long Beach California and play really in your face rock and roll with a stoner influence. The band features Greg Coatez (Master of Reality) on bass, Billy Blaze (TSOL) on drums and Bryan McIntyre (Wonderlove) on lead guitar, and of course Johnny on vocals and madness. The opening number, "Jesse James", is a real stoner rock and roll track. "Overloaded" is a much more melodic rock track and probably gets played on the radio in the LA area. "Who'd You Let In?" follows and has a bit of mysterious guitar riff to start before the hypnotic groove kicks in. "The Deuce" is another quite melodic hard rocker. "Wouldn't Mind It (Jack Kelly Blues)" is one of the best tracks on the CD with a cool blues and hard hitting riff. I enjoyed this one. "Toad Mind" is a slow heavy track with a cool guitar solo and ending to the track with some organ. This is one of the only tracks where the band appears to jam a bit. "The Tastiest Bite" is a really cool laid back ballad with some great songwriting. "Hussy" is a foot stomping rocker like the good old 70's sound. "Kickin' ass! Icarus Wax" begins with a heavy bass line before the killer guitar riff comes in and takes the track away. This sounds great when you crank it up loud! "Strangleroot" is another pretty damn cool track. "Give Me What You Got" is perhaps the heaviest track on the CD, but also one of the least interesting. The CD closes with "Snakecharmer", which is very AC/DC influenced. Quite a damn good debut CD. Must be a pretty ass kickin' live band!
For more information you can visit the Johnny Jones web site at: http://www.johnnyjones.com.
Email at: hellcompany666@yahoo.com.
Reviewed by Scott Heller