A couple of years back I stumbled on Joanovarc by accident when I was put onto their debut ‘Ride of Your Life’ by a friend when he sent an email to the wrong friend and I published it as a review before being intrigued enough to shell out for a copy. It turned out he had also been put onto them by a friend accidentally, and whilst I wouldn’t recommend that as an effective marketing strategy or indeed a great way to start a review here we are with album number two.
Album number two is better than that debut of which our reviewer said at the time “If you want fantastic musicianship, very impressive vocals, and an album full of variety, power and melody, this is a wonderful discovery.” The songs here show just that much more nous, that much more passion and just seem somehow ‘bigger’.
Opener ‘Burning’ which takes as lyrical inspiration the 2011 London riots is a suitably huge riffed and frenetic way to start album number two and one which leaves you in no doubt that there will be no ‘difficult second album syndrome’ here. Indeed as you dig deeper you find that not only is Joanovarc’s latest full of variety, it also sees all of the band pitching in with songs. The result is a nice balance of melodic Rockers, Bluesy moments, no-nonsense rock and rollers, a nice ballad, and what the band themselves refer to as ‘Disco Rock.’
If that grabs you attention then the songs themselves deliver consistently. ‘Take It Out’ ticks the ‘Rock’ box and makes use of the most underused of rock accoutrements – the tambourine; the ballad ‘When We were Young’ shows that you can rock on the acoustic and maybe even sports the best solo here.
Our favorites though might just be that aforementioned ‘Disco Rock’ of ‘People Coming Up’; the rocking ‘Try I On’ and the riff monster that is ‘Waiting For.’ This one sounds huge!
JOANovARC: Samantha Walker (bass, vocals), Shelley Walker (lead guitar, backing vocals), Laura Ozholl (rhythm guitar, vocals) and Deborah Widish (drums).