Album Reviews : Masters of Sugary Melodies Fill Album With Melodrama : * 1/2 BON JOVI “These Days”, <i> Mercury</i>
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Fluffy balladry, cloying bombast, syrupy romanticism--the trademark ingredients of the Bon Jovi sound are present once again on the sixth album from the candy-metal kings of New Jersey. But as sweetly dimwitted as much of the band’s material may be, they remain masters of their craft, and Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora’s knack for pop arrangement consistently turns their simple melodies, sing-along choruses and varied expressions of heartache into mini-masterworks of sugary melodrama.
Songs such as “Something for the Pain” and “Damned” are packed full of surprises--swirling strings, sitar, keyboard flourishes and cleverly layered guitars and vocals. “Hearts Breaking Even” finds the band effectively working through a pumped up Memphis-style groove, while “(It’s Hard) Letting You Go” is the album’s biggest heart-rending ballad.
On a few songs, the lyrics shoot for some regular-Joe relevance, leading to such unintentionally hilarious moments as Jon Bon Jovi growling about being “two paychecks away from living out on the streets” in his hard-rocking rant against the powers-that-be, “Hey God.” He comes off better delivering the lovelorn sentiments of the album’s most restrained track, the elegantly bluesy “Diamond Ring.”
New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).
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