This is my first review so be gentle, I'm not too great at making reviews lengthy but I'll try my best. :-)
I had only heard of this guy recently after seeing him open up first for 3 Doors Down in Wolverhampton, he's difficult to know what genre to specify but I feel Pop/Rock/Soul fits in nicely.
Each song on the album has a different sound, sometimes it's full of soul, at other times it has rock sound, and the album frequently switches between genres.
1. Just a Man - 4:06 - The first song on the album, and it starts off the whole CD nicely, the majority of this song is quite soulful, and his soulful voice and the rock beats in the chorus really stand out as the highlight of the song.
The music itself doesn't seem overly intricate but that's not really the aim of this guy.
The song starts off with a little drumming and a nice little guitar riff to start it off, it's nothing special until the chorus kicks in. 4/5
2. Love Is Alright - 3:40 - Now we hit a love kind of song, again with soulful singing and soft rock beat, the chorus again is more rock driven, the bass line in the chorus kind of reminds me of Soul to Squeeze by the Chili Peppers, if you listen to it, you'll know what I mean.
The song itself starts off again with a little guitar, then kicks in with a cool drum fill and a slide from the good ole bass.
Not the best song on the album, but it's damn good. 3.5/5
3. Rock & Roll - 2:45 - The shortest song on the album, yet it's a really cool one, this is the song on the album that is more rock than anything but you can still hear the soulful style singing from Jon.
The song starts off with some heavyish guitar and then it stays throughout the song. 3.5/5
4. Grass Rivers - 3:24 - This is a very cool song, and good to mellow out to, we have a woman singing the chorus with Jon which is a nice touch as their voices complement eachother nicely.
This song starts off with some acoustic guitar a little bass and a little drumming, this being a mellow song it's slow riffs. 4/5
5. 7 Days - 3:33 - Another cool song, and yet again another soulful one, this song starts off pretty cool, we start off with a keyboard intro with bass and drums in the background, we get some other instruments in this song like trumpets etc, overall this is another very cool song. 4/5
6. Take Me Back - 3:25 - This in my opinion is the second best song on the album, it starts with some drumming a slide into the bass and then it repeats the riff until the chorus, this is again quite soulful and doesn't have a whole great deal of rockness to it, but it's still a great song. 4.5/5
7. Hero - 5:44 - The best song on the album, I've fallen in love with this song, it starts off with some keyboard playing, Jons voice really excells in this song, it's very soulful and has no rock beats to it, the chorus itself is incredible as it shows off Jons voice to full effect.
The lyrics arn't too bad either, it's a great one to sing along to, half way through the song we get a saxaphone solo which makes your hairs on the back of your neck stand up. 5/5
8. Stereo - 3:45 - This is another song that goes back to the rock era, Jon has released this song as his first single, it's not amazing, but it's still damn good, Jons soulful voice suits the rocky music which makes this a fun song to listen to.
The song itself starts off with some guitar, a little bass fill and some drumming and it stays the same until the chorus hits. 4/5
9. How Would I Know - 4:13 - This is a great song, not quite the best, but one of them, it starts off with some keyboard with a little bass in the back and some soulful singing from Jon, the song doesn't kick in properly until a little way into the song, but when it does it flows beautifully. 4.5/5
10. Nothing - 4:47 - This song starts off with some piano playing and some singing from Jon, this isn't the best on the album but it's very good still and should be listened to whenever you listen to the album.
The song doesn't really shy away from the piano as it's very piano driven, we also get some saxaphone playing in this song. 4/5
11. Grandma - 4:16 - This is an acoustic song, with a slight country sound to it aswell as soul and rock.
The song is basically about his Grandma who has never been stoned or something, it's a very fun song and sounds great live, there's not a great deal you can say about this song apart from it being great fun and a great way to end an album. 3.5/5
Overall this album is fantastic, the soulfulness of it really hits you and the rock beats sounds pretty good with Jons voice.
So out of 5, Jon Nicholson - A Lil Sump'm Sump'm gets a 4.5/5
