jOnO - Sentimental Anarchist

If it's easy to suspect but difficult to prove that many singer-songwriters disguise a lack of insight with poetic or verbose lyricism, that's not an allegation I can throw at jOnO: he makes no attempt to disguise his lack of insight. On opening track Stuck In The City, the "in the city" hook is repeated 27 times, just in case the profundity didn't strike you the first time. That tactic of repeating the title ad nauseam is spun out throughout the album, as is his strategy of whining meaningless cliches in a high nasal voice. Even in, for example, Silver Nails, where the title is only repeated eight times, inane lyrics like "My heart was battered, bruised and broken/ the sky was falling down/ I laid my soul upon the ground" are surrounded by Tourettes-ian grunts and affirmations, because jOnO's lack of imagination leaves him resorting to the cheesiest traits of MOR soft rock. His absence of awareness is further exemplified by the song titled I Dun Wunna B, in which he reveals his ambition not to be "famous, anymore" over painfully cod reggae guitar rhythms. Don't worry jOnO, on this evidence there's no chance of that. [John Wylie]