Dennis Jones - Pleasure & Pain 2009

Goofy album cover aside, Dennis Jones' 2009 album, Pleasure & Pain, is one rollickingly good time -- especially if you're a fanatic of groovy blues-rock. Possessing a voice that sounds very comparable to Doug Pinnick of King's X and guitar work modeled directly after Stevie Ray Vaughan (and judging from the album cover, looking much like a cowboy version of Dennis Rodman), Jones runs the blues gamut on Pleasure & Pain, with cases in point being such standouts as the album-opening "Brand New Day" (which contains snazzy, swing-like horns), "Kill the Pain" (which approaches Zeppelin-esque hard rock territory), and such Stevie Ray-like ditties as "Blue Over You" and "Hot Sauce." Pulling in elements of vintage and gritty blues-rock (without smoothing it over in the studio -- something that many modern-day blues-rockers are a tad guilty of), Dennis Jones gets it right more times than not throughout Pleasure & Pain.

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