Damn. Sean Bonnette is quite the lyricist. In this album alone, he manages to touch on murder, cannibalism, arson, and what I’m sure are a few other morbid topics that I haven’t picked up on–all in under 26 minutes. I’ve heard good things about AJJ for years now, but for some reason, I never got around to listening to them before this. I’m kicking myself for that now. Fortunately, Bonette has a couple of Chicago shows coming up that I’ll be able to make.
AJJ have a very unique sound. They’re described as folk-punk, which I guess is pretty accurate. Aspects from both of those genres are evident on People… The instruments–an upright bass and an acoustic guitar–represent the folk side, while the destructive, angry lyrics show the duo’s punk side. They pay their dues to folk lyrics, though, especially on the awesome Survival Song. After throwing in a couple of lines from the Dust Bowl classic Do Re Mi–with tongue in cheek–Bonette shouts “And we totally ripped off a man named Woody Guthrie/And I bought a restaurant for his son named Alice/And I fed false information to the audience/And that’s how I learned how to survive.”
This album helped me figure out what I like most in music: misleadingly happy instrumentals and musical arrangements, with unconventional, melodramatic lyrics (i.e. Los Campesinos!, a few Titus Andronicus songs). These traits are hard to come by, so when I find a group that exhibits them, I’m going to latch on. Which means there will be a whole lot of Andrew Jackson Jihad in my future.
Swole Ear 
Sean Bonnette and John Darnielle could be brothers.