Songs of personal significance.
Matt Jones and The Bobs formed way back in 2011 while they were studying at Radford University, all sharing a love of americana, roots, and classic rock. Their debut album Brother’s Hymn was released in 2014 to much local acclaim. It highlighted all the issues about growing up in small-town Southwest Virginia from the view of young men of a certain age. However, despite paying their dues, as with many college bands, they broke up in 2015 to concentrate on other pursuits.
However, unlike many bands, they kept in contact with each other and eventually got back together in 2024, stepping back into the world of music older and wiser, perhaps, each with ten years more experience to draw on. The result is a splendid, mature album for today’s musical consumer. Each song (and there are thirteen) has so many emotions running through it. Some feel vulnerable, others supremely confident. They all are superbly written by Jones and expertly played by the band; there isn’t a misstep throughout.
On the dynamic of getting back together, Jones comments: “We understand each other’s strengths now and know how to bring the best out of one another. That shift has made a big difference in the music. There’s more patience in the process and more openness to letting ideas develop instead of forcing them. Everyone has a voice, but there’s also a shared understanding of what serves the song. I think that balance has made what we’re creating now feel more cohesive and intentional”.
The album opens quite slowly with Borderline, which blends country acoustic and electric guitar very pleasantly and certainly sets the tone for the next seventy minutes or so. It finds a man standing on a hill “waiting for answers” and not really sure how to find them. This is followed by You stood still, an extremely enjoyable romp thanking a friend for continuous support and standing still in times of fluctuation.
Wicked Ways is an extremely personal song about his older brother and the things you pick up from someone you admire from an early age. Some are good, some perhaps less so, but they are life- and attitude-forming. “Some things we’d like, somethings we would take back”.
The overall theme of the album is change and how to deal with it as positively as possible; “A lot has happened in the decade since we released our first record. We have all grown older, experienced loss, built careers, started families, and gained a different perspective on what is important. Even though the songs were written at different times, they all circle back to questions about identity, connection, resilience, and learning how to move forward when life does not go according to plan”.
At seventy minutes long, it may well have benefited from a little tighter editing to keep it consistently interesting; that said, it is a very contemporary album that confronts change and all it brings for good or ill. They have certainly benefited from their hiatus from each other.
