STILL LIVING – YmmiJ

Rock Company 2017

STILL LIVING –
YmmiJ

Refracted image of a broken life – with heavy twists and tuneful turns – as seen in a mirror behind the bar.

From the title on, there’s slight surrealism applied to this album, yet don’t expect a lot in terms of imaginative narrative from the Brazilian team who know how to rock hard and have been at it for more than a decade now. The quintet’s third offering “YmmiJ” is a conceptual work, with a very vague storyline about a man called Jimmy that you’ll notice in the latter part of the record once snippets of dialogue start to intersperse songs, and perhaps it’s good because grand ideas shouldn’t get in the way of melody

With a bit of prog edge to the guitar squall, “Reign Of Pills” marries social issue to chemically enhanced escapism, but the band truly excel when reckless rock ‘n’ roll is let loose on the likes of “On The Edge” to counterbalance rather regular, if catchy, AOR choruses. Conversely, when this too-clean melodic approach becomes a number’s main feature, as “The Man I’ve Become” must demonstrate, boredom may set in, and the endlessly repeated “I need you here somehow” line from “I.M. Jimmy” doesn’t sound too exciting.

The heavier the better, Eduardo Holanda’s six-string riffs filling “Call Of The Night” with high-octane energy and Thiago Nascimento’s organ steamrolling the terrain for Renato Costa’s bluesy vocal onslaught, and as “King Of Nothing” gets slowed down under the heel of an Iommian figure the ensemble’s class is taking over roughness. “Peace Or Pieces” could be where it all will reach equilibrium, but a bonus ballad “Redemption” – with a piano carrying vocals – is an elegant addition to the set. So although some images seem surreal here, these aural pictures deserve observing… especially if the album title sounds like “image” but is, in fact, “Jimmy” backwards.

***4/5

October 13, 2018