Labels: Cat N’ Cakey
Review by: Alex Deller
Jets vs Sharks. I saw them play a show a while back in a small town I’d never heard of called Overton. And it was completely fucking invigorating. The band went off, and a school hall packed with kids so young they could have been the fruit of my very loins went absolutely mental. It was fucking great, and one of the funnest gigs I’d been to in god knows how long, largely because it was packed full of punks who hadn’t yet learned that its not the done thing to look like you’re having a good time, and to feign disinterest at all costs.
This is their cd. And its pretty neat. Up-tempo melodic hardcore that takes the sound of halcyon days Hot Water Music and injects it with strains of something slightly more metallic, like maybe Shai Hulud or some band like that. The singer has the trademark raspy yell that bands of this ilk seem to favour, and the guitarists duke it out with some great choppy guitar parts and dapper melodies. It has to be said that the whole thing pulls together pretty damn well, particularly on the song “paved with crude inventions’, which is positively rollicking.
Plus points are naturally gained by the references to Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story’, a film I have seen more times than most thanks to an eccentric and alcoholic music teacher who preferred the class to watch said motion picture than tinker with his glockenspiel. Bravo.