ANY DAY NOW

Chronique

The Jones in the Jones Gang is Kenney Jones, who was the drummer in the Small Faces in the '60s, the Faces in the '70s, and in the '80s replaced Keith Moon in the Who. He is the centerpiece in this band that also features such classic rock veterans as Bad Company's Rob Hart and Rick Wills, who played with Peter Frampton's Camel, Foreigner, and a latter-day incarnation of the Small Faces. Their 2005 debut album, Any Day Now, is a bright, accomplished, professional collection of latter-day classic rock, drawing from the traditions of the '70s and '80s, but given a modern-day gloss. While the music sounds comfortably familiar, it can't be easily pigeonholed. There's the hard-driving, anthemic opener, "Time of Your Life," which is followed by the horn-spiked pop tune "Mr. Brown" and the power ballad "Angel," which in turn is followed by the tremendously appealing, nimble acoustic tune "She'll Never Now" and then the psychedelic-tinged "With You." Any Day Now keeps following these left turns, but instead of sounding like a hodgepodge, it gels because it sounds as if the Jones Gang are revisiting everything they loved about the music they've made in the past and putting a fresh spin on it. It not only makes for an engaging, entertaining debut, but it suggests that there are any number of paths they could follow on a second record.
© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo