Music Review: Jeremy Jordan Shows No MERCY With His New Hard Rock Album With AGE OF MADNESS

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, welcome back to Bobby’s CD sandbox where we offer our broken-down breakdowns of new music releases. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

This week’s album entry in the BobbyFiles comes from Broadway and TV musical leading man, Jeremy Jordan, who decided to tear away the mask of Broadway gentility, and storytelling with script and score, and tear us all a new one with his Rock & Roll album, ironically titled MERCY. The name of the album is ironic because the white-hot blaze from which these sounds explode, indeed, shows no MERCY coming from him or his band, Age Of Madness (yet another ironic name, given the album’s title). This six-song EP (however UN-Broadway it may be) is as much a marvel as it is a surprise. The driving rhythms and harsh tone poems from the band match the challenging poetry of the lyrics, and Jeremy’s blaring vocals make short work of his rep as a sweet-faced musical theatre tenor, lifting them all into rock & roll Nirvana (see what Bobby did there?) Speaking of… that iconic grunge rock group who exploded onto the music scene in 1991 (when Jeremy was 9) may well have been in the air, and influencing the Gen X ears of Age Of Madness, the band made up of Jeremy, his longtime friend, prolific guitarist and masterful musician Mikael, and Sarah Charness, who positively kills it on the rock violin.

Without going blow by blow through all 6 numbers (because snore) allow little Bobby to give his view of a few highlights… Opening the album with the titular (what? Bobby knows words!) song MERCY, we hear Jordan using all of his voice in a harsher production than he has been given to use in the past - an almost metal rock sound that stops just short of tipping over metal’s door.  Truly unlike anything most of us have ever heard from him, my angels, this song is hard rock with hard rock lyrics of life and death, death and pain, death and the war inside ourselves - Deep, right? SOMEBODY is a cut on that album with an electronica-sounding opening and syncopated rhythm that is somewhat off-putting in ways that knock the listener off-center with a radical kind of radicalism… if that makes sense. The cut is hardcore, but with a tune in Jordan’s voice, and it is always that voice that dominates and keeps us safe. It’s a nightmare - so run!  Only his voice keeps us from being torn to shreds by the monsters in the music. Then there is COME TOGETHER - a cover of The Beatles' rock anthem, sprinkled with a little acid. Mikael’s strong steel guitar (and bass) underneath pushes the song upward with Charness’ wailing violin on top, all grabbing at Jeremy, causing his loud, loud, loud outcry! It’s a wail of pain … an explosion, but still respectful to the original Rock & Roll recording by the boys.

The other 3 cuts, HARDINGE GARDEN, GIVE IT UP, and DISAPPEAR combine with the other three songs, creating an EP of unrelenting forward motion, like a locomotive with no one’s hand on the break, driving ever onward in musical ways that are a little maddening in the best hard rock kind of way. In short, while this may surprise Bobby’s fellow old-timers who love to drive in The Broadway and The American Songbook lane, we really liked going rogue and banging our head, just a little, with the musicians of Age Of Madness. We feel sure that we will enjoy the live version too, next month at City Winery… So, to Jeremy Jordan’s Rock & Roll baby, delivered just last week, we hand down AGE OF MADNESS and MERCY a pretty fab …

4 Out Of 5 Rainbows 

Age Of Madness Will Play City Winery on July 17. Get Tickets: HERE

You Can See And Hear Everything About Age Of Madness On Their LinkTree: HERE

All of the songs on this debut album (except for COME TOGETHER) were written/composed by the Age Of Madness bandmembers, Jeremy Jordan, Mikael, and Sarah Charness.

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