Across three albums, Jonathon Linaberry, better known as The Bones of J.R. Jones, has fused together folk, blues, and country for a stripped-down, pretension-free mix that brings to mind folks like Scott H. Biram, Shakey Graves, and even Jack White in his more constrained, thoughtful moments.
But there is a rawer, more emotionally fragile feel to the songs that make up Slow Lightning, his fourth studio album. “I felt very lost at the time I was writing these songs,” he says. “It was a moment of deep crisis and anxiety, but I knew the only way out was through, which meant I just had to bring myself to the table every day and put in the work.” As he began to think about work on the record he and his wife had recently relocated from Brooklyn to an old farmhouse in the Catskills – a pretty remote area. “The kind of place where spring is just a continuation of the cold, grey, muddy, brown of winter. I was exhausted by the seasons, working on songs nine hours a day in the attic, and it all felt very isolated and insular.”
Themes of despair and doubt are all of this record, not only due to Linaberry’s deeply expressive vocals and often desolate and questioning lyrics, but also thanks to the added cinematic scope to the music courtesy of his frequent collaborator Kiyoshi Matsuyama, producing. The Southern Gothic vibe of Linaberry’s guitar is built on synthesizers and drum machines. You can hear these on the haunting “Blue Skies,” with a lonely banjo in the foreground and the almost dreamy soundscape of “Preservation”. “The Good Life,” one of the band’s early singles is slightly more upbeat thanks to the electronic drum beats and subdued acoustic guitar that perfectly showcase his vocals. “Heaven Help Me,” a driving almost hypnotic track, is one of the early standouts here. The album closes on the delicate “Baby Run,” another intimate number that almost feels like you’re intruding on his privacy.
Like Biram before him, Linaberry cut his teeth in punk bands giving him that DIY ethos and a drive to make music that may not exactly appeal to the masses but is both confessional and genuine. As far as the latter point, Slow Lightning may be his most personal album to date.
