John Diva & The Rockets Of Love - ‘The Big Easy’

‘The Big Easy,’ is the third album from these US / European rockers. Over their first two albums, ‘Mama Said Rock Is Dead,’ (2019) and ‘American Amadeus,’ (2021), the band have laid out their template. Big bright glam metal with hooky choruses.

That template isn’t moved too far away from on ‘The Big Easy.’ If ‘American Amadeus’ was made for cruising up and down the Pacific Coast Highway then ‘The Big Easy’ is the chill at the end of the day, kicking back on the beach with bonfire burning and beers and Jack Daniels going down.

The album opens with ‘California Rhapsody.’ This is a piece of pure theatre, part Beach Boys harmonies, Part Seals & Crofts Romanticism as it opens. Then around the one-minute mark the guitars kick in and we’re off. The music segues into the title track and proper album opener. ‘The Big Easy’ pumps up the keyboards and we’re deep into Europe territory around the time of ‘Out of This World’ and ‘Prisoners in Paradise.’ The track inverts normal expectations by rocking out in the verses before delivering some class pop/rock hooks in it’s chorus.

‘God Made Radio’ follows. Musically there’s a feel of Dan reed Network, Extreme, Van Halen going on here. The song is an ode to the music of the 80s and 90s. They name check a whole host of bands and it’s a lovely reminder that there’s no shame in loving good straight forward pop music in truest sense of the word, that is music that is popular. We’re lurking in the underground here. We’re talking about references To Ozzy, GnR, Tears for Fears, Pet Shop Boys and many, many others.

‘Runaway Train’ is a great rocker. It’s a coming-of-age song and works well. It has big choruses, and I mean big, big choruses. They hook you in and they won’t let go. When they put earworm in the dictionary they’re going to have to put a soundbite of the chorus to this track in with it. Even when there’s a lyric that borders of cliché, they deliver it with such joy and that they get away with it.

Track 5 is ‘Thunder,’ and this has a heavier feel. Def Leps ‘Don’t shoot (Shotgun)’ and Billy Squier’s ‘The Stroke,’ would be good examples of the feel of this track. It pushes the guitars back up to fore and hey crunch and growl along to the slower groove of the track. It’s a dirtier groove, with the repeated title vocal in the backing vocals working well. It breaks up the album in a good way and shows that the band can drop into minor keys and still create great tunes.

With ‘Believe,’ the album returns to the more pop/rock template of earlier tracks. It’s a gentler song but still propels itself along on a bouncy beat. Once again they manage to deliver a lyric that could be classed as borderline cheesy with such joie de vie that they are quickly forgiven. This is music to put a smile on your face. It’s the kind of song Bon Jovi used to make hits out of.

‘Back in the Days,’ I’m going to go out and say this is my favourite track on the album right now. It’s catchy as hell. It’s like the sound of a fondly remembered summer day, drenched in honey, and spent with your best mates and the girl of your dreams.

‘Hit and Run’ is the albums power ballad. You sort of know it’s going to appear at some point. When it does it doesn’t disappoint. You can see all the mobile phones lighting up when this one is played live. The band deliver the song with so much feeling that you can’t help but give into it.

Here’s something I really like about JDATROL. There’s no sense of pastiche with them, Homage at time, yes, certainly on the two previous albums. They don’t wallow in the sex and drugs aspect or appear to be knowingly mocking the music they play. So, they aren’t limiting their appeal in the way perhaps a Steel Panther or The Darkness do (in my opinion anyway.) That sensibility really comes through on ‘Boys Don’t Play with Dolls.’ This is fun, loud, brash glam rock twenty first century style.

Another contender for favourite track is ‘The Limit Is The Sky.’ As the album nears its climax the band deliver song full of optimism and hope. It’s the sort of song we all need to hear in these times. It sits great alongside Halestorm’s ‘Here’s to Us.’ Songs that make you want to raise your glass and kiss the sky and dream that dreams can come true if we just believe in ourselves and surround ourselves with good people.

Penultimate track ‘Capri Style,’ is a party starter. It’s another catchy as hell track.

That’s another thing that strikes you, you could read this, and on paper think it reads like an album that over the twelve tracks (11 actual songs), it would grow repetitive. It doesn’t. Each track is so good that you don’t ever feel like the band are repeating themselves. To keep that eighties glam rock recognition going I’d liken it to hearing Bon Jovi’s ‘Slippery When Wet’ for the first time back in 1986. This album really is that good. There are other similarities it’s also JDATROL third album and leading nicely to the last track both albums finish with a song that has ‘wild’ in the title.

‘Wild At Heart’ delivers a fitting end to the album. This is definitely designed to be a live favourite. It’s slower and delivers a change in feeling just when you thought the album couldn’t deliver anymore surprises. There are loads of ‘woooahs’ liberally scattered through the track to get the crowd going. I expect that in a live setting it could easily go on much longer than the four minutes and fifteen seconds it lasts on the album.

I’ve used a lot of retro references here because they are obvious influences. But band mainstays John Diva and JJ Love have created a truly great glam metal album for the twenty first century. They’ve certainly come along way from their beginnings in San Diego, California, literally and musically. This is a record that will appeal to those who hanker for the glory days of Bon Jovi, Poison, Mötley Crüe, Cinderella etc and the fans of current bands like Halestorm, Cats in Space, Space Elevator etc.