by Mark Anderson
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Do we really need to tell you to listen to the new AJJ album? If the answer is “yes,” then DO IT RIGHT NOW.
More topical and political in nature than much of their music, Good Luck Everybody features band members Ben Gallaty and Sean Bonnette both producing and recording the bulk of material themselves. Opening with the late-2019 single “A Poem”, the album quickly moves on to the latest single “Normalization Blues” — an aggressive, fret-board flying blues number that’s all bars and no hook. The stellar “Body Terror Song”, sounding like a Bible 2 era b-side, reinforces how well AJJ can both crush and lift your soul in two and half minutes.
The mid-way point of the album contains the stupid-good “No Justice, No Peace, No Hope” followed by “Mega Guillotine 2020”. “No Justice” takes no qualms as Sean sings, “Again we slip inside a pit of absolute despair/ that’s where we live now” while “Mega Guillotine” is best experienced in video form, truly ingraining yourself in it’s message. The last half of Good Luck Everybody also slays including the highlights “Psychic Warfare”, “A Big Day for Grimley”, and my favorite song on the album (as of this writing) “Your Voice, As I Remember It” — yet another beautiful song about death from the AJJ crew. All in all, a tremendous album from start to finish and shoutouts to jalipaz for mixing and Kim Rosen for mastering this fine work.
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Catch AJJ on tour with Xiu Xiu and Emperor X at The Pressroom when they roll through town on 3/31. More info and tickets through Eventbrite.
