Robbing Johnny: Cold March Album Review: Potentially Awesome, But Lacking

New York City has been a den for a ton of artists, musicians and writers since the early Nineteenth-Century. It has also spawned a ton of genres and bands such as “The Ramones” and the American Punk (with a ton of help from “CBGB”) and rap. One of the newest trends comes from indie band “Robbing Johnny” (Vocals, Pat D. Robinson; Piano, vocals, guitar John Murrell; Guitar, Evan Harris; Bass, John Mahoney, and drums, percussion, piano, Jordan Brooks.) Their newest album, “Cold March” has some talent, but comes off as generic in spite of a sometimes wild arrangement of New York-inspired tunes.

The genre this band calls itself is “bodega folk rock.” You won’t get any kind of answer as to what that means because none of the tracks on here sound anything like folk. If anything, “Robbing Johnny” sounds like the kind of band you’d hear in any “Starbucks” or coffee shop in either Williamsburg, Park Slope or the Upper West Side.

The opening track, “Sylvia,” starts off OK and does set the tone for the entire album. It does have an amazing big band super powerful ending to it which is a plus.

“Cold March Reprise” comes closest to that “bodega folk rock” they are trying to achieve. As a matter of fact, it sounds amazing. It sounds like an old-fashioned doo-wop that ye olde New York was famous for back in the old days.

Also, these songs make a ton of references to things New Yorker will recognize like the various trains, the infamous NYC pigeons and even Manhattan itself. It’s a nice touch to add in places and images of New York to make your songs scream “we’re a New York band.” At the same time, it takes over at times and hurts the band’s overall appeal. Nevertheless, if you’re a New Yorker, you’ll eat this stuff up.

Musically, there is talent here. The guitar solo during “Grandfather’s Jacket” is amazing and the piano is competent. The main issue is “Robbing Johnny” spends a little too much time trying to be experimental and creating a new genre that what matters most in a song, passion, love, hate and various other feelings, just die in the middle of songs that work best as coffee house background music.

“Robbing Johnny’s” new album doesn’t quite live up to whatever “bodega folk rock” is supposed to be and comes across more like coffee house background music. There is some talent to be had here, but it all falls flat.