Tigers Jaw - Spirit Desire - 7

Labels: Tiny Engines
Review by: Andy Malcolm

Tigers Jaw shows us two sides of the band here, on two sides of their record. “Spirit Desire” is their A-side, and this one summarily knocks the b-side out of the park. It is a long, meandering, slow burning indie rocker. The vocals are kind of quirky, very nasally and whiney. The music is somewhere between Built to Spill and mid period Engine Down. It creates an incessant rhythm, rumbling along like a mile long freight train through Kansas, never easing off the pedal but never pelting either. I am impressed that they maintain a fairly straight forward sound for a whole side of vinyl, most bands would get bored or boring over that time. Over on the flip we see the other side of Tigers Jaw, “We Are Great…” is poppy late 90s indie / emo, not bad, a little Get Up Kidsian, a familiar sound that I am happy to replay. Unfortunately things draw to a close on the fairly lame “Crystal Vision” which limps along, again borrowing liberally from the late 90s but without ever injecting enough life into the sound.

Overall this 7″ is pretty decent then, two good songs, one not so, certainly a massive improvement on their previous LP, that’s for sure.