Reviews of this week’s album releases: Bon Jovi, Gracie Abrams, GoGo Penguin, and Jean Brégnan

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/06/2024 (797 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ROCK

Bon Jovi

Forever (Island)

Forty years after they ran away with our hearts and into rock history, Bon Jovi is back with a reflective new album taking stock of all the things the boys from New Jersey have accomplished.

Perhaps the biggest news is that there’s a new Bon Jovi album at all. After years of experiencing vocal issues, singer Jon Bon Jovi underwent surgery on his vocal cords in 2022 and wasn’t sure of what the results would be.

They turned out fine. His voice has a slight affectation to it, mostly on protracted vowel sounds, but the charisma and the mischievousness is still there, as are a few successfully hit high notes that are an encouraging sign.

Living Proof is the best Bon Jovi song in nearly 20 years. It brings back the talk-box device that was such an integral part of Livin’ On A Prayer and It’s My Life, and the song has the kind of catchy chorus that burrows deeply into your brain.

Opener Legendary is one of many songs here that look back contentedly and approvingly at the band’s career (“Right where I am is where I wanna be,” Bon Jovi sings.) It’s followed by We Made It Look Easy, with similar sentiments.

At least one song on this album will truly be played forever at wedding receptions: Kiss the Bride, Jon’s ode to his soon-to-be married daughter. Fathers of daughters: I dare you to listen to this song and not cry.

The album comes amid much speculation over whether original guitarist Richie Sambora will ever return to the fold. The solos here by current guitarist Phil X are unexceptional, and certainly don’t make a case against an eventual Sambora reunion.

★★★ out of five

Stream: Living Proof; Kiss the Bride

— Wayne Parry, The Associated Press

 

POP

Gracie Abrams

The Secret of Us (Interscope)

Singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams succumbs to a crush on Risk, the lead single of her frantic and melancholic sophomore album, The Secret of Us.

“Heard the risk is drowning / But I’m gonna take it,” she sings atop fast acoustic guitar, her vocals growing more frenetic as the production thickens. “Watch this be the wrong thing,” she exclaims in the chorus.

The track reveals an evolved, but familiar, Abrams. The 24-year-old singer-songwriter has let us into her diary before, but The Secret of Us is more intimate and less reserved than her previous work. This time, her songs aren’t recollections of waning heartbreak, long held insecurity or lingering guilt. They’re happening in real time, developing and dissipating on record.

The great Blowing Smoke sets a biting critique of a lost flame to acoustic guitar and hums that are traded for electric instruments and shouts, as Abrams’ quips lean into frustration. She belts on Let it Happen, where Tough Love starts with whispers on a train to Boston and ends with a euphoric drum beat and declaration of self-love.

The urgent melodies and breathless bridges on this confident album are progressed from Abrams’ past work when her writerly, soft-sung, “sad girl” pop music was much more wistful and anxious.

The album’s sparkling centerpiece is Us (feat. Taylor Swift). Their voices weave together, harmonizing the album’s title atop a dreamy acoustic track.

The Secret of Us, paints a picture of an artist in motion, one who is discovering what excites her creatively as she navigates young adulthood. And by taking listeners along for that ride — the frustrations, vanities, chaotic crushes and all — she opens an exciting door for her future as an assured and energetic performer.

★★★★ out of five

Stream: Blowing Smoke; Us

— Elise Ryan, The Associated Press

 

JAZZ

GoGo Penguin

From The North: GoGo Penguin Live In Manchester (XXIM)

The jazz trio has never settled on one particular form, although the piano-led trio was perhaps the early benchmark.

Latterly that form, too, has expanded its possibilities. Many “piano” jazz trios now aren’t named for the pianist and assume an egalitarian mode where all three share the spotlight.

A fine example of that has been the English trio GoGo Penguin. The three are Chris Illingworth on piano, Nick Blacka on bass and Rob Turner on drums. There have been wonderful releases with this band until a lengthy hiatus set in. Last year there was a release that gave notice the trio was back. It was called Everything Is Going To Be OK, and the notes revealed that the band had experienced a series of blows – health and other critical issues – that had silenced them for the moment. Happily they are back.

This live EP features tunes mainly drawn from Everything Is Going To Be OK. As is always my reaction to EPs – I would have loved more. What is offered here is simply terrific.

A distinctive pattern of many of the trio’s compositions is a fairly brief repeated refrain that serves as the base of often convoluted improvisations and rhythmic tension. The opening track, Wave Decay, is an example that kicks off the album beautifully. Ascent takes the mood back a step with neat involvement, especially from bassist Blacka. There is a fine arrangement of the title track from the former album.

Everything Is Going To Be OK is clearly now a staple of the trio’s playlist and serves as a highlight here where the positive mood actually describes the title perfectly.

An Unbroken Thread of Awareness adds more electronic efffects within a gentle groove. All in all, a very enjoyable and excellent album. I look forward to more from this fine trio.

★★★★ ½ out of five

Stream: You’re Stronger Than You Think; Everything Is Going To Be OK

— Keith Black

 

CLASSICAL

Jean Brégnan

Liebe Amalia… (Harmonia Mundi)

French flutist Jean Brégnac pays homage to royal arts patron Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia. The baroque album features intimate chamber works by her protégés: Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, her mentor Johann Philipp Kirnberger, as well as original compositions by the princess herself before her death in 1787.

Listeners are treated to several trio sonatas, including C.P.E. Bach’s Trio Sonata in D Major, H. 575, Wq, proving his status as heir apparent to his father, J. S. Bach’s legacy, as well as his contemporary, Kirnberger’s Trio Sonata in C Major.

The (mostly) period instrument chamber ensemble is joined by soprano Chantal Santon Jeffery for the same composer’s languid arietta D’amor per te languisco, H. 767, Wq. 213, Busslied, H. 686/46, Wq. 194/46 and Geduld, H. 686/6, Wq. 194/6, that showcases the singer’s buttery-smooth vocals and lyrical phrasing.

Strangely, only one lone instrumental work by W. F. Bach and sibling to C.P.E., is included: Polonaise in E Minor, F. 12/8, that nonetheless adds further context to the overall program.

But the Princess’s own compositions prove the icing on the cake, including notably the world première recording of her lied An das Klavier delivered with limpid simplicity by Jeffery. Finally, Flute Sonata in F major, brought to life by Brégnac’s throatier baroque flute, provides further evidence of the creative force that lay behind this crown, the mysterious, never-married royal who honoured the past, while passionately still following her art.

★★★★ out of five

Stream: An das Klavier; Trio Sonata in D Major, H. 575, Wq.

— Holly Harris