Jonas Brothers - Greetings From Your Hometown
“Take me back, yeah”.
This line from the title track can be used to pretty effectively sum up the Jonas Brothers’ seventh studio album, Greetings From Your Hometown, released August 8th via Republic Records. The trio use this record to reconnect with their journey and their past, creating a batch of tracks that is fun, upbeat, and nostalgic at times in a very wholesome way, which long-time fans are sure to enjoy. Once you look past that, however, there are still certainly some flaws.
One thing that has to be said straight away is that this album is an unquestionable improvement over their 2023 project The Album, even though they do share certain issues. Chief among these is the processing - it is still excessive on this record, but not nearly as overwhelming. The music is still pretty generic in a lot of places, being reminiscent of other artists and tracks. “Tables” reminded me of a watered down version of “Circles” by Post Malone, for example; “Heat Of The Moment” sounds like an early Bastille track. But there are still some tracks that feel more authentic to the Jonas Brothers, like the aforementioned title track, or “Love Me To Heaven”.
It is said that this record took seven years to write, and is meant as a tribute to their careers; while this is a very sweet sentiment, the side effect of that time frame is that some of the tracks ended up sounding quite dated, like they would’ve been more fitting in the 2018-2020 time period. Some songs also feel a little like they don’t really belong on the album - the Marshmello song “Slow Motion”, which featured the brothers, seems to have been tacked on at the end to boost the album’s numbers; the Dean Lewis-assisted “Loved You Better”, while a solid track, is also a little out of place with its piano ballad feel. The strangest musical decision on the album, though, comes on the penultimate single, “No Time To Talk”. The chorus features a bizarre interpolation of the Bee Gees’ classic hit “Stayin’ Alive”, which comes pretty much out of nowhere and isn’t really justified in any way.
However, overall, there is still a lot to like on this album. Greetings From Your Hometown is undeniably charming in a lot of moments. The Jonas Brothers have had a long, storied career, and they seem more aware of that than ever on this record, but without falling into excessive pomp or self-importance. There are still some very catchy moments, too, something which they’ve almost always been excellent at. It’s far from a brilliant album, but it does more than enough to justify its existence.
6.3/10
