Another Long Day

This impressive, engaging, and hook- and anthem-minded if not wholly original roots rocker at least has the good sense to mention in his bio that he "grew up in a working class family of 5 boys in Central New Jersey listening to Springsteen, Mellencamp and Bob Seger," while fine tuning his own version of heartland rock. Listening to his incendiary debut — produced with the perfect balance of raw edge and slick funk by Anthony Krizan of the Spin Doctors, who discovered the singer/songwriter as an acoustic artist playing the NJ club scene — it seems as though he's borrowing quite a lot from all three. And the album cover borrows a bit from the Springsteen look circa 1975. But those are minor points. The pop charts may not be into working-man Americana tunes anymore, so hats off to any artist who can bank his career hopes on these kinds of slices-of-life tunes. Instantly engaging, punchy mid-tempo rock singalongs like "Long Gone," "Another Long Day," and "Just a Woman" are hard to resist, even if under all the guitars and J-Henry's gritty voice they don't pack the poetic punch of his influences. The intensity of these rockers is balanced by a handful of country-flavored tunes, including the romantic power ballad "On the Horizon" and the lilting "Back to LA." Moving into Marc Cohn territory, he goes for a romantic, piano-driven gospel vibe on the mournful "When It's Raining." J-Henry's emotional rasp makes even the prosaic lyrics seem more powerful on this tune and many others. He's definitely got the chops to make it big as an indie artist, but he'll have to work on a deeper sense of lyrical poetry to be remembered as anything more than just a fun bar band singer.