According to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Freedom Tower – No Wave Dance Party 2015, is “a radical portrait of New York City set to the savage funkacide of the Blues Explosion,” and they’re not wrong. After almost a quarter-century of detonating the blues, and about three years since their last release, JSBX is a somewhat different conflagration. While the group’s boogie and backbone are intact, they’ve traded their A Ass Pocket of Whiskey-era fuzz sound for refreshingly cleaner guitar tones across the board. Instead of incessant conflagration, Freedom Tower sounds more like a blues-funk record
than a blues-punk record, and more akin to Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears than The Stooges. Furthermore, the drums read purposefully sloppy at times, but beat keeper Russell Simins still anchors this album with precision. This release finds the band in their natural habitat—the concrete jungle—touting tunes that inspire the listener to dance like the Blues Brothers down Orchard Street, looking for trouble on the road less traveled. Analog anthems like “Betty vs. the NYPD” soar and bounce, while “Wax Dummy” and “Bellevue Baby” exemplify JSBX’s stripped-down and grimy dance aesthetic by drawing on classic styles rather than venturing into the digital dance age.