ROBERT JON & THE WRECK : HEARTBREAKS & LAST GOODBYES

ROBERT JON & THE WRECK : HEARTBREAKS & LAST GOODBYES

Sittin' Pretty
Ashes In The Snow
Highway
Old Man
Dark Angel
Long Gone
Better Of Me
I Wanna Give It
Heartbreak & Last Goodbye
Keep Myself Clean

Label : Journeyman Records

Release Date : August 22, 2025

Length : 40:46

Review (Blues Rock Review) : Heartbreaks & Last Goodbyes, the ninth studio album from Robert Jon & The Wreck, is scheduled for release on August 22, 2025. The band consists of Robert Jon Burrison on vocals and guitar, Andrew Espantman on drums and vocals, Henry James on lead guitar and vocals, Warren Murrel on bass, and Jake Abernathie on keys and vocals. The album is a solidly respectable entry into the group’s discography, firmly in their tried-and-true southern rock sound. There are no real lows on Heartbreaks & Last Goodbyes! The first seven tracks on the album are radio-friendly country rockers and ballads that would feel at home amongst the likes of ZZ Top and Rival Sons records. The album is largely characterized by classic-feeling riffs and solos, with big anthemic choruses taking advantage of the two guitar and triple vocal sound of the band. There’s fun, thrilling solo work, dirty country organ sounds, and some big emotional numbers (“Highway”) that feel straight out of 90s country radio. There’s nothing wrong about these tracks, but the final three songs of the album shine the brightest. In order, tracks eight, nine, and ten are: “I Wanna Give It,” “Heartbreak and Last Goodbye.” and “Keep Myself Clean.” These three closing songs feature lyrics that feel the most emotionally authentic and resonant on the album, and the band’s work on keys and guitar feels stronger than the first two-thirds of the album. All three feature big, bold choruses, catchy keys work, and strong, atmospheric riffs to hold up the message of the lyrics. There’s also a direct correlation between how excellent these tracks feel and how much they remind me of 70s and 80s classic southern rock tunes; they just feel timeless and elemental in the way the best songs of The Band do. “I Wanna Give It” feels like a fun gospel-influenced ballad straight from the 70s, and is probably the strongest song. “Heartbreak and Last Goodbye” is the title track and the obvious single, and feels like it was pulled straight off a “greatest 80s ballads” collection. The final track on the album, “Keep Myself Clean,” is a great noodling reflection on sobriety and feels like a natural thematic cap to the record, which is deeply introspective and heartfelt. It may not surprise longtime listeners with new innovations or changes to the band’s vibe, but Heartbreaks & Last Goodbyes is a fun and well-made album. Robert Jon & The Wreck are currently on an international tour to promote the record, and fans of southern rock should check out the dates!

Review (Rock N' Load) : How this Californian band are managing to continuously tour and produce albums of this quality, I don’t know. Heartbreaks follows on from the excellent Red Moon Rising and is even stronger than that. This time, they have switched producers. Dave Cobb is at the helm to keep things fresh. Robert Jon tells me that Kevin Shirley will be back in the hot seat when the time is right. Another thing that is different is how the album was recorded. Ten days were spent in the studio without distraction, no going home, just time for that lightning bolt to strike. That approach has worked so well, Robert can’t imagine recording in other way in the future. Throughout each song has its own identity, the more you listen, the more you discover. Opener ‘Sittin’ Pretty is a powerhouse of a song that just happened in the studio. ‘Ashes In The Snow’ is retrospective and slower-paced. ‘Better Off Me’ has a tasty keyboard intro, and all members get the chance to shine. ‘Old Man’ is a song that many of us could connect with; it was written by Jake Abernathie and his girlfriend. The legend that is John Oates co-wrote ‘Long Gone’; it has a funky feel and underwent many changes; Oates is delighted with it. ‘I Give It’ was written many years ago on a porch with friends; it was never expected to appear on a Wreck album. Robert Jon’s voice has a beautiful tone. What I am trying to say is Heartbreaks And Last Goodbyes is sprinkled with magic; it is an album that is pure from beginning to end. Our vocalist says the title track is special; he is right. What a way to close a record. Guitarist Henry James Schneekluth plays with nuance and feel, then explodes in all the right places. Robert Jon And The Wreck (just in case you didn’t know) is a Southern Blues band based in Southern California, but they are so much more than that. Soul, Funk, Rock ‘n’ Roll and great lyrics embellish the sound, and you can’t want more than that. One further point, when these songs hit the stage, their magnitude will be even greater. I’d better mention Andrew Espantman (drums) and Warren Murrel (bass), who provide the bottom end to perfection.

Review (Maximum Volume Music) : You look on in awe at the likes of Dylan. His first eight albums came out in the space of five years. People opine that this doesn’t happen anymore. Those people don’t know Robert Jon and the Wreck. The hardest working band in rock ’n’ roll bar none, this is their third album in three years, plus however many EPs – around half of these songs have been released before. “Sittin’ Pretty” is one of them, an energetic fizz bomb of a start and proof that there’s no finer rock ’n’ roll band around. But they can switch gear at a moment’s notice. They are the best, full stop. In the spring, when I saw them, they made “Ashes in the Snow” a real centrepiece, and the ballad deserves it – somehow it sounds even better here than on the EP. That’s true, too, of the utterly incredible “Highway”. There’s true mastery at work here. The way it swerves from Lizzy-style twin guitars to Henry James smashing out the solo is astonishing. And “astonishing” is the word for much of this. “Old Man,” one of the previously unreleased songs, has a chorus that belies its pain. “From my broken home I learned to stand,” sings Robert Jon – and maybe there’s real feeling here. There’s a classic feel about the boogie of “Dark Angel,” a walk on the wild side if you will. And there’s always a sense with RJATW that they know where the trouble is. One they’ve been playing live for a while, “Long Gone,” hides its nefarious intent behind sweet harmonies, but it’s there. “Better of Me” is so timeless it could have been on an early Skynyrd album, or something more modern like TC3, and it fits right in. It’s a gift – and The Wreck deliver it. “I Wanna Give It” opens with the line “I’ve got a Smith and Wesson in the back of my truck,” and it’s as Southern as that sounds, as well as searching for peace. The title track is as good as it gets. Sort of country, sort of blues, wholly brilliant. “Pour me some liquor and forget the ice,” he sings – and you know this was written at 3am, in a moment of raw reflection. “Keep Myself Clean” closes the album with the same class as the rest. Indeed, it might be the best track here – a lifetime on the road, a lifetime of hard knocks, it’s all wrapped up in this glorious five minutes. Produced by Dave Cobb (and there’s barely a great band he hasn’t worked with over the years) and recorded in Georgia, the magic has rubbed off. “Heartbreaks and Last Goodbyes” is – even by the high standards of this most brilliant band – an absolute cracker.

Review (Louder Sound) : When perusing reactions in the fanosphere to these West Coast-based southern rockers, terms such as ‘honest’ (as if the world is full of mendacious, disingenuous rock bands trying to deceive) and ‘no frills’ are often used. But while the motto on Robert Jon & The Wreck’s Bandcamp page reads “music, miles and whiskey”, bands like this often need an extra spark to set them apart from their fellow roadhogs and good ol’ boys. On this ninth official album, the latest in a prolific string of releases, their determination to find that is well in evidence. Here they’ve benefitted from the input of Nashville super-producer Dave Cobb (who has also helped polish the sound of names such as Jason Isbell, Rival Sons, Sturgill Simpson and Brandi Carlile), but wisely they’re not trying to reinvent the southern rock wheels on which they have been rolling around the US for the past decade or more. RJ&TW sound for all the world as if they’ve been raised in a barroom on the Bayou, despite all being from the considerably less gnarly Orange County, California. But if you can reinvent yourself anywhere, rock’n’roll is the art form in which to do it, and over the course of the 14 years they’ve been playing together, RJ&TW have earned the right to keep channelling the spirit of the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd et al. They’re also becoming more accomplished at doing so with every new release, as Heartbreaks & Last Goodbyes demonstrates. Sittin’ Pretty opens proceedings at an exhilarating pelt, but further into the album a more anthemic feel prevails. Dark Angel and Ashes In The Snow are woven around tight riffs, while Highway’s twin-guitar refrain is backed up by an insistent, Motown-style backbeat. Elsewhere, Old Man builds from despondent piano and wistful, emotive guitar to an organ-soaked, arms-outstretched chorus. Finally, the mood darkens further on Heartbreak & Last Goodbye as it broods despondently on the scars of the past, before the crunching, salutary sign-off Keep Myself Clean explains: ‘All my friends are dead or in jail’, but resolves to avoid any such fate with help from the redemptive power of rock’n’roll. The music Robert Jon & The Wreck are making now sounds life-affirming enough to do all that and a lot more.