Let’s face it, Bon Jovi haven’t written an interesting song since their painfully handsome front man lopped off his golden locks and took a one way trip on the train to tuna-town. I like a ballad just as much as the next red-blooded man, but I draw the line at having soppy fourth grade love poetry drizzled down my ear canal by a banal Sensodine sales rep, and that’s why I absolutely will not be buying, borrowing, downloading, pirating, stealing or even eavesdropping on the Jersey four-piece’s latest audio-abortion.

Because We Can has even more issues than its glib and rather feeble title might suggest. Apparently whoever produced it forgot that guitars existed, and you can barely swing a cat without accidently slamming the innocuous feline into a horrible cliché of one sort or another (oh wait…) There’s only so many times you can tell your audience that love will move a mountain, or play the same progression of jangly, Indy-rock chords before you find that the auditorium has emptied and the manor house has been repossessed.

There are only so many times you can regurgitate the same dog-eared sentiments and obnoxiously quaint storylines before you find that the world has tired of your half-hearted balladeering and moved on to bigger and less repetitive things. Obviously nobody took the time to tell Jon that though.

Once again he’s churned out a trite little three minute fable about a hideously average working class couple who triumph against adversity by remaining faithful, promising not to let each other down and being more mundane, stereotypical and obnoxiously uninteresting than a bag of wet rice.

Sentiment is laid on with a trowel. The whole debacle is about as subtle as a gentle fisting from larry the 300lb Silverback.

It’s not the lack of narrative focus that really upsets me though, or the horribly pop-rock guitar tone. I could even forgive the airy, meat-free chorus. The thing that really makes my gut churn?

No proper riff.

Not one.

Richie Sambuca used to be a great guitarist. The insidious, snaking guitar that underpins Keep the Faith sprung from his fingertips. It was him that furnished us with the raw, punchy guitar magic that makes Bad Medicine. Recently, however, he’s been relegated to the naughty corner so Jon’s ego can come play sell-out arena tour #356. He’s a backing guitarist now, content to noodle along in the background and play the occasional solo and that? That is a shame.

Don’t just take my word for it though, give it a listen here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Z3nh-ah_k)