It’s been four years since “Volume 4” and Joe Jackson returns better than ever. Impeccable musicianship with great songwrtiting leads me to say this is a return to form that doesn’t feel as forced as “Volume 4.” Jackson has done it all the past decade from soundtracks, to jazz, to blues and has come home to his pop roots for “Rain.” For a start, he’s reunited with Graham Maby and Dave Houghton, both players on his classic eighties albums. He has constructed an album with the polished melodies and the massive hooks that borrow from different styles of his earlier catalog. The opening track “Invisible Man” is a piano pop classic that states his celebrity status among today’s musicians and stands alongside his greatest songs. “King Pleasure Time” and “Good Bad Boy” have a nostalgic feel and approach that would fit just fine on “Look Sharp”. Another new classic and my favorite here is “The Uptown Train” – a song that couldv’e fallen off of “Night and Day.” Another amazing track “Too Tough” that has the concert hall feel of his album “Body and Soul.” The other songs here are excellent too, “Wasted Time,” a very Rundgren-like, soul ballad, and the gentle strains of “Rush Across the Road” are pure pleasure for fans here. Jackson is above all else a musical survivor of the skinny tie era and enjoying every minute of this. It’s tough to argue against it, when so much passion is on display here.
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