Labels: WEA
Review by: Mark Skold
Have you seen what major labels will do to stop people downloading crap from Kazaa now days? It’s hysterical. They take a whole record of a band a month before it comes out and send out promos, but each record has “voice-stamps”. It’s clips of the band saying shit like “this song rocks, you should buy this record on May 20”, all over every song every 30 seconds. Lame.
So Less Than Jake are back. They decided to put out their next record on Sire, which is a Warner Bros label. Sell outs? Who knows – they bounce to indie to major with every two records they put out.
There has been more hype than the second coming of Jesus on this record, so it’ll be interesting to see what it’s all about, if anything……
Bad news: It’s not as amazing as they wanted us to believe. The first single, “She’s Gonna Break Soon”, is the weakest track on the record (which could be deliberate….). “Look What Happened” appeared on their last record, and it has hardly changed at all, which begs the question “WHY?”.
Good news: LTJ are fully up to scratch. A very promising hit to miss ratio. Some less heard sounds, like the Specials-esque “Science of Selling Yourself Short” and the cold-HOT “The Brightest Bulb has Burnt Out”.
Thought-provoking lyrics that any regular schmo could easily relate to, super catchy hooks and enough horns to be interesting and fun, but not enough to make you want to shove sharp things in your eyes and a general feeling of good will and happiness. They’re all here, and it all adds up to a pretty sweet record.
It’s not breaking boundaries, but it’s consistent with the expectations any decent music fan would have for a LTJ record. Catch ’em on tour in May for a taster, and I bet you’ll want to go steal Anthem from someone who doesn’t have the voice stamped version.