The terrifying thing about working in music journalism lies in those moments when sounds and styles of music you hated before you signed on start appearing again. When that happens, it suddenly seems possible that, soon, both radio and television airwaves may become inundated by those sounds again in the name of fashion. That possibility is bad, but even worse is that now, so many years later, you may have to work with them on a daily basis. Such was exactly the chill I got when I started listening to Jaill's second album released this year (first for Sub Pop), That's How We Burn.
The album opens with stringy, sinewy New Wave grandeur that instantly recalls the stiffer sides of Duran Duran, Depeche Mode (i.e. Before those bands became totally synthetic entities) and other such groups inextricably linked to the opulent and synthetic (in character, if not in sound) side of the Eighties. Such designs will be cause for elation in some listeners but, for others, it will be maddening, worrisome and difficult to take because New Wave was very much a take-it-or-leave-it type of music but, either way, the sound on That's How We Burn will leave listeners reeling for one reason or another. With those listeners still off-balance, Jaill effortlessly shifts gears and forces a dollop of immaculately produced and sanitized guitar pop in the form of “Everyone's Hip” down listeners' collective throat.
Scared yet? You should be.
With those poles of their sound set for That's How We Burn, Jaill then sets to filling in the spaces between to offer as complete a portrait of the band as they're able and what comes out is a “sort of” dissociative New Wave design, coupled with a partially 'rock n' roll' approach that is all very much a product of 1984 and is well-played, but will only draw a fraction of the mainstream attention it's playing for because the music is reflective of the Eighties and there are more than enough members of the record-buying public who still haven't lost the bad taste that the decade left with them. Songs like the gaunt, angular “She's My Baby,” the passably Ennio Morricone-ian “Demon” and the saccharine-sweet “Baby I” (on which the band contrasts 'Sunday driving' music with crass lines like, “Baby I hope to make that change, not be fucked in the head/you can see my face twitch so I must not be dead”) are all a little on the stuff side just because of the band's own proclivities and the focused, staggeringly clean and precise production job afforded by Justin Carl Perkins but, even beyond that, the entire album seems to come off as a bit flat and stale too. There isn't really a single instance at which one could point to get a perfect example of the slick, texture-less performance on That's How We Burn, it's just an omni-present fact that really helps the band fail to make a significant impression.
Perhaps this overview of That's How We Burn is needlessly over-critical, but it can't help but be. The album and the sounds it presents will have a very polarizing effect on listeners; they'll either love it or hate it, and whether the record succeeds or fails will depend only upon with side of that line has a greater population.
Artist:
www.jaill.net/
www.myspace.com/jaill
Download:
Jaill – “Everyone's Hip” – That's How We Burn
Album:
That's How We Burn comes out through Sub Pop on July 27, 2010. Pre-order it here on Amazon .
