Most Excellent
This foot stomping, dance around the kitchen collection of tunes is lots of fun. Amazing what three guys can do! Don't miss the opportunity to see them in concert.

great band, great music
What can I say? This music is fun to listen to. Over and over, and over. Absolutely superb musicianship, not overproduced. They rock, they jam, and they get funky... so if you like to rock, jam, and get funky, this album is for you. Their sound is one of a kind. While the mainstream music seems so focused on relationship problems, depression, drugs, lust, etc, the JBT sings about the good things - peace, family, dance, and making love. With some political statements thrown in the mix.
Grand National is a great experience and gets my recommendation.

a pleasure to listen...
Grand National, the perfect cd for driving 100km on a sunny road, it's one of those cds that you can hear a thousand times, great songs, personally loved used to get high... absolutely would recommend.

Good grooves
I heard JBT on our local progressive radio station and liked some of the grooves. I was looking for some new music and gave Grand National a whirl. It's excellent. It's easy to call them a jam band, but the mix of influences, including blusey slide guitar, funky grooves, a little celtic beat with a few rap-sytle vocals mixed in for some songs is very nice. Add some thought provoking lyrics and I love the combo. Now I'm jut deciding which JBT album to buy next.

Also, after listening to the disc for about a month, I was able to catch JBT live and whoa, they were awesome! Those 3 guys put out some serious sound. If you get a chance, don't pass it up.

I finally came to like it
The good: Good variety across the entire album. John provided plenty of his traditional fare: acoustic, lap slide, and banjo. He even introduces some solid reggae with "Groovin' Slowly" and incorporates orchestral pieces in "Caroline." For so much variety, the album still remains cohesive enough to please me.

The bad: Lack of variety within certain tracks. I find some of the individual songs disappointingly repetitive. I suppose it's part of John's style, but his guitar parts on certain tracks, such as "Better Than" and "Good Excuse" never change during the course of the song--not even for the chorus. To be fair, other songs contain a great deal of variety therein. Several songs, such as "Devil Running" and "Gonna Take It," start light and masterfully crescendo to a rousing finish.

I have been a JBT fan for several years now. I eagerly awaited the release of this album, since I instantly loved "Sunrise Over Sea" upon the first listening. However, it took about 20 times through "Grand National" to feel connected to it; but I finally got it. Had I not already loved JBT, I probably would not have put in the time. Thus, I recommend "Sunrise Over Sea" for any JBT newcomers, and I recommend this album to the all-accepting and/or patient JBT fans.