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Review: Hogjaw, The Tunnels
Hogjaw arrived at the Tunnels at the ass-end of their first UK tour and played a frankly excellent, rambunctious set of southern metal spanning their six albums to date and delighting a raucous crowd. New album Way Down Yonder was of course featured, but the band dug deep for older cuts – throwing together a set that played to their strengths and demonstrated their versatility.
Johnboat Jones took most of the lead vocals and was a massive presence on stage: six foot plus of jeans, huntin’ tee shirt, trucker hat and with more facial hair than a packed popup cafe full of Stokes Croft hipsters. His Gibson Explorer may have looked like a ukulele in his hands but he played it like a melon farmer.
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Jimmy Rose supplied an awful lot of scorching lead work, fluid and melodic with just the right amount of squall. He meshed beautifully and duelled frequently with Jones, the latter tending to forge the rhythm (but his occasional solos were exquisite) and the former cranking out riffs with abandon. Rose even managed to slip a couple of mini solos in that sounded straight out of the Bay Area thrash scene in the mid-eighties.
Drummer Kwall was a powerhouse throughout the set. He’s a fella that clearly believes Keith Moon was a staid, laidback, conservative drummer; Ian Paice didn’t use enough fills and Bill Ward never hit the kit hard enough. So, he treated his kit as a lead instrument, delivered an abundance of fills (without dropping the beat) & battered the hell out of his drums; giving the songs a percussive drive like a monster truck driven by a rhino. Elvis DD was a man clearly enjoying himself: forceful, melodic bass and, despite the lack of a mic, he sang practically every word of every song. He was a man in motion; the stage could barely contain him and sure enough he was in the crowd for a boisterous rendition of Gitsum.
The band’s roots were clear to anyone with a working knowledge of southern rock; there were echoes of The Allman Brothers Band in the duelling leads (particularly in the craftily constructed Brown Water, with its cheerful melody) and certainly a nod to the more metallic nous of Blackfoot. Yet Hogjaw have managed to take their influences and use them as building blocks for something that sounds fresh and contemporary. Driving beats (set opener Rollin’ Thunder was breakneck and breathless); an enviable sense of dynamics (the multi-layered Where Have You Gone, powerful enough for Download but catchy enough for the charts) and some surprising lyrical content (check Never Surrender).
Of course, the 28th amendment to the United States Constitution requires that all bands playing Music of Southern Origin will write and record an epic song, and that an extended version of said epic will form the centrepiece of every show (as established by The Outlaws, Blackfoot and most famously by Lynyrd Skynyrd). Fine upstanding supporters of the Constitution that they are, Hogjaw delivered a monumental version of I Will Remain, but that wasn’t enough – County Line was its equal, making for two epics in one show. Both renditions reworked the core tunes into passionate, towering edifices of intertwined guitar and rumbling bass over what were basically drum solos without all the grandstanding bullshit so common with ropey hair metal bands.
Whilst any decent rock band can pull off their signature epic live, their true measure can be judged by their ability to leaven the set with more succinct tunes, and tunes that worm their way into new fans’ ears resulting in album purchases, recommendations to friends and future ticket sales. Way Down Yonder was delivered with sass and its snaky riff had the crowd grooving and singing along by the second chorus, drowning out the band . Built My Prize a slower burn, but again, instant likeable chorus and intricately captivating guitar work.
This Whiskey closed the set, its pretty, low-key opening leading in to what felt like a burgeoning third epic before taking an unexpected swerve into a rock n roll shuffle before concluding with a pounding riff drenched twin-lead finale. Hell’s Half Home of Mine led the encore, another squirming earworm of a riff with a cymbal-iscious catchy chorus leaving the crowd delighted and the band grinning into their beards.
The past few years have seen a resurgence in southern rock bands: Blackberry Smoke regularly sell out the O2 Academy, as do the Cadillac Three; and whilst Whiskey Myers have been conspicuous by their absence from yokel venues, they too are progressing upwards. Hogjaw fit naturally with these bands: less country than the Smoke; more direct and heavier than the C3 and less inclined to jam than Myers, their metal take on southern rock is well worthy of your attention. They promised to be back next year: get an album, enjoy the tunes and watch our listings so you can be sure to score a ticket.
Hogjaw: The Tunnels: Thursday, 18 October 2018
All pix by Doug Bearne
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