JVP – behind this cryptic name we have a band, that’s been founded in 1997 in beautiful Landsberg upon Lech. Obviously, its members do their job for quite a long time. Their current demo CD Emotion is pure and solid hard rock with a pop-appeal: melodic and, as a craftsmanship, quite correct.
But that’s nearly all. The choice of titles, well, isn’t very creative, at all. OK, in some way, we had it all before (did anyone count every track called The Power Of Love ever?!), but: Purple Rain?! Sorry, chicks, this has been occupied too heavily, before.
On the content-side we don’t have to expect cascades of haunting metaphors or dark sarcasms. Here, we have rhymes like „higher“ after „desire“ and the quintessence of Purple Rain can be reduced to „dance to the music, groove to the music“. One might find it groovy, others don’t care. A matter of taste...
But nevertheless, the musical substance, this CD appears quite tame. Too dominant distorted guitars to be pop, too scholastic to be gripping rock. Too traditional structures, to be up-to-date, and less self, ironic to sound „retro“. It almost seems someone forced the solo-guitarist into a pentatonic corset right before the recording and pulled him to a wasp’s waist: Continuously, this poor man struggles against the blues, but got out of breath. What a pity.
But JVP, it seems, come strong at the end of the fight. The final track Fire On Ice enfolds, though still in the frame of the conventionally expectable, some kind of charm: melodic vocals, clean guitar-verses, distorted chorus. Mainstream rock à la Melissa Etheridge. Of course, again, we could complain about the not ever exact, pressed vocal lines, as a result the best future march-direction for JVP may show: Straight on in the middle of the road and avoid the pot-holes of subculture. – It’s better to be consequently normal than disabled extreme.