C.J. Ramone - American Beauty (2017)

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C.J. Ramone - American Beauty (2017)

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CJ Ramone - American Beauty (2017)
FLAC+CUE+LOG or MP3 CBR 320 | 33:20 min | 255 or 77 MB

American Beauty is the record I’ve been working towards since I started putting out records as CJ Ramone. My songwriting has definitely grown up some, but the raw energy is still there. Steve Soto, Dan Root, and Pete Sosa helped me drive every track home in a way that only veterans of the business can do, with engineer/co-producer Paul Miner throwing gas on the fire every step of the way. I don’t think I could have made this record any better. 2017 is set to be my busiest year yet, starting with a coast to coast US/Canada tour, followed up by an extended trip to Europe this summer. Fall and Winter we’ll be spending in South America and we are working on a trip to Japan and, fingers crossed, Australia. It’s going to be a good year. Hope to see y’all on the big road.

~ C.J. Ramone

So the album is called American Beauty, and there are roses on the front cover…wait a minute, has C.J. Ramone made a Grateful Dead tribute album?!? Thankfully, no – C.J., the latter-day bassist with the favorite sons of Forest Hills, is still clearly a Ramone at heart, and on this album, he sure sounds like one. American Beauty boasts ten songs full of poppy punk-rock hooks and an unrelenting supply of downstroked guitars, just as one might expect, and here C.J. seems perfectly happy to give fans of his old band just the sort of music they want. That said, C.J. happens to be pretty good at this stuff, and if none of these songs reinvent the old-school punk wheel, they deliver plenty of sturdy rock action while allowing the bassist to put some of his own touches on the Ramones template. The two-guitar attack on these sessions (featuring Steve Soto and Dan Root of the Adolescents) gives the music a different texture than Johnny Ramone delivered with his Mosrite, and with drummer Pete Sosa, C.J. generates a different sort of groove that's effective but also has a life of its own. And C.J. has his own point of view, quite separate from the goofy tales that dominated the Ramones catalog. He can write about good times on the road in "Let's Go" and "Steady as She Goes," but "Moral to the Story" shows he knows plenty about the dark side of the rock & roll life. "Yeah Yeah Yeah," "Run Around," and "You'll Never Make Me Believe" are unpretentious but deeply personal, short stories of life as an uphill battle. And there are two genuine surprises – "Tommy's Gone," a brief acoustic tribute to original Ramones drummer Tommy Erdelyi, and "Pony," a spirited Tom Waits cover gussied up with mariachi horns. C.J. Ramone proudly carries the torch for the Ramones on American Beauty, but thankfully he's not just copying the band's old glories, but giving their legacy a fresh dose of energy and a different perspective.

~ Mark Deming, all media guide