Labels: Rise
Review by: Sean Haughton
In earlier years I loved Knapsack, and fairly regularly I remember that I still do love Knapsack. As one of my first gateways into a genre/that whole era and crowd of bands, it’s hard to shake the adolescent feeling listening to ‘Silver Sweepstakes’ or ‘This Conversation Is Ending Starting Right Now’ gives me. The Jealous Sound were already in full flow by the time I had heard Blair Shehan’s previous band, and first LP and EP were perfect extensions of that sound I had fallen for. Slightly different, yet familiar, songwriting remaining at a high quality. The band remained at that spot in my mind for years, an enjoyable offshoot of something I truly loved. When the band dropped off the map entirely, it felt natural and that new bands would form at some point. The project seemed to have reached a logical progression.
And so, somewhat unexpectedly, a decade later, I am reviewing a second Jealous Sound album. A deluxe reissue of second Jealous Sound album, on a label that released infamous secret-chubster Jesus metal and now puts out Hot Water Music and Further Seems Forever(!?). They even released that last Cheap Girls record, which was great. On top of this, SDRE/Foo Fighters member and AIDS denialist Nate Mendel plays bass on the record. Okay.
The record itself is ill-fitting, with the classic Shehan formula fed through a seriously over-the-top stadium rock filter. Certain songs veer dangerously close to chart-era Biffy Clyro or, in the case of the last song, Snow Patrol. Overall, It sounds like someone clumsily trying to shoehorn a different band into trying to sound like those acts. A liberal use of delay pedal weighs heavy on the whole affair, and in the case of ‘Change You’, some woeful choral synth effects. The middle of the record mostly floats by like an imitation later-period Death Cab For Cutie album. This makes the moments where that sound comes through clear even more infuriating. Tracks like ‘Promise Of The West’ and ‘Equilibrium’ sound like lost Knapsack songs, the former especially nailing that classic dynamic of previous works. Occasionally the vocals even let that trademark howl rip.
The bonus tracks are less overproduced, although the first, ‘Full Rewind’, still suffers from the same charmless traits as much of the LP. The remainder of the additional tracks are made up of the band’s 2008 stopgap EP ‘Got Friends’ (which I had missed entirely), and these tracks feel far more natural and more in tune with the band’s earlier work. The title track is especially enjoyable. As a whole, I wanted to love this more than I did. It’s clear the band are aiming for a specific “huge” sound, but for the most part that sound just emphasises how listless a large section of the songs are. I feel more disappointed than repulsed by it all.