Sound: The Irish rockers first album, opens an epic land of beauty and quite inovative alternative rock. JJ72 has a mix of rock, acoustic strumming, string sections, high vocals chords, and some great (and some cringy) lyrics. The music is naturally influenced by Nirvana - although you'd struggle to realise that yourself at first, since it doesn't have that "grungey" sound as such, to me JJ72 sounds a bit like Muse's first album "Showbiz". It is a great album, and a great band, so lets get into it!
01. Bumble Bee: this song starts off with melancholic clean strumming, and some soft haunted lyrics sang by Mark Greaney. Then it takes away off from the ground, some grungy chords and distortion kick off, teamed with some great drums. It calms down again, the clean strumming is back, teamed with some eery ocillation guitar, and bang it's back to grunge. But this is a good thing, his almost strained vocals bring out a great anger to the song, and coulped with the distortion and palm muting, this is a great track.
02. Algeria: again some clean strumming, but this time an optimistic voice and some more hopeful lyrics, although the deepness is kind of lacking in the lyrics section. This a nice song, the soft sliding guitar sound, the clapping/feet stamping fits in nicely done, and the drums are particularly enjoyable. The solo is out of this world, enjoyable, but also untabbable sadly!
03. Not Like You: acoustic strumming this time teamed with a xylophone adding a nice melody which is later teamed with acoustic picking and clean electric gutiar with a slight delay. The vocals again are quite special, I enjoy this song, it's got a slightly nostalgic effect to it, the xylophone makes me think of my childhood, and I think the lyrics also play on that aspect, that stage where you progressing from childhood into a more grown up mind, but still wanting to cling to the past.
04. Improv: a neat little track, with some of the tracks on this album, you get the feeling Mark Greaney was in the studio on his own late night or early in the morning before dusk, just recording on his own, because some of the tracks are absent from bass or drums, it's Mark playing and singing, I think this almost, strange departure - is quite uplifting and quite refreshing.
05. Broken Down: because all our pasta machines fail at some point! If you listen to this song, you'll enjoy that little joke! Once again, just Mark on his own mostly. Reverbed clean guitar, so ovbiously a startocaster, can pick out those pickups anywhere, Mark teams his guitar and vocals in quite an unusual way, and its thouroughly enjoyable. The guitar is soft and punchy, exactly like his vocals, this song has been in my head for many years, and will forever stay there, because this track is magical.
06. Snow: acoustic guitar start again, but eventually (and inevitably) (:D) some kick ass distortion kicks in. This is another great track, it gets you riled up over why it doesn't snow - whilst the deepness is lacking again, you don't care because you know immediately it's just a simple rock track. It's not totally lacking lyrical deepness, as with the "Improv" track, it's a call back to childhood, so really it's relatively deep, but not so much that it's immediately ovbious to the listener.
07. Long Way South: again, just a simple enjoyable rock track - in the modern world of searching for deep meaning, and despretly trying to infuse some political nonsense, these songs are a nice departure from that.
08. Surrender: some might say, radiohea- wait a minute! Pure JJ72. Eery reverb high vocals haunt this track throughout, with a nice delayed clean guitar. I love the build up in this song, the sneaking distortion teamed with "Bang in line - its all they do!" makes for a great listen.
09. Willow: the strings make a nice entry here, teamed with acoustic strumming, soft drums and supportive bass. And also, we can't forget Mark Greaneys soft Irish vocal chords, which really are perfect for this song. This fragile song is delicate enough to break any mind into thinking about the person they love, which is more of a joy than a curse, because this song really is so beautiful.
10. Oxygen: probably the most famous track of the album, an enjoyable, high pitched rock track. But this time, the lyrical deepness is teamed with kick-ass rock. Huzzay! This song is special for me, and will be special for you, listen to this song first before any other songs on this album, it will draw you in, then ensare you forever, and you won't mind a goddamn bit when it does. If you're keen to see them live, watch this track on top of the pops on youtube, it's quite special.
11. Undercover Angel: clean guitar melody, teamed with acoustic strumming, the clean guitar eventually turns into a cheesy 60's delay effect, but that's ok because it fits well, and it soon dissapears with some awesome distortion with angry vocals. I like this track because it combines soft vocals with a soft melody, builds up tempo and an acoustic guitar starts, then distortion creeps in again. It's a good track if you're quite pissed off, the vocals are quite excellent. Although the track itself isn't really about anger, I think that's why the vocals are so good, they're a paradox to the lyrics.
12. October Swimmer: probably the second most famous song of the album, not just because it's good, but because if you hit up youtube again, you'll eventually come across them performing on some crappy irish chat show - and well, they kind of dislike the program it seems, and Mark Greaney goes pretty overboard in EVERY way possible, such as singing way to aggressively and high, then him cranking up with the wah and distortion, and actually playing longer than they're schedualed too, forcing the sound team on the show to cut their sound. And then you get a camera shot of the presenter who has to turn to the camera and say, "That's JJ72 - fantastic" with an outrageously cheesy smile. But aside from the live aspect - which as you gathered from my description hopefully, is pretty f--king awesome - this song is both sweet and soft. This album very much has a mix of soft/hard, and that's not a bad thing, too many bands these days are stuck in overdrive, or delay. *Cough*U2*Cough // 8
Lyrics and Singing: The lyrics generally on most of the songs, are pretty eye opening - for example - "We don't need oxygen, it's dreams that binds us and locks us in", but naturally some falter, such as "WHY WONT IT SNOW!?" But the tracks where the lyrics hiccup slightly, is because it's intentional, there just straight foward no messing around rock tracks, so you can't really get to cut up about that, and as I said - it's nice to have some just rock songs instead of them despretely trying to infuse political meaning at any oppourtunity - which is the current theme in many bands today.
The lyrics are both chilling and soft, they fit well with the music, as the band gets soft, Mark's voice joins that, but as the band builds up and the heavy choruses kick in, Mark steps up and belts out great lyrics - "Death defying breeze - is just what i need!".
As far as singer skills go, if you thought Muse's Matt Bellamy was high - you haven't heard anything yet. But don't think it's all high pitched vocals trying to blow your head up like 80's glam rock, its very much a varied mix. The majority of the songs are sang with a certain deepness to them, but unleash high note fury at certain intervals. The high notes aren't overused, which makes them special and enjoyable - and they don't frustrate you.
However, they are still quite raw, which personally I quite like - others however aren't that keen, which is a shame in this current world of computer generated vocals, it's nice to have someone step up and just use the voice they were given. // 8
Impression: If you were to compare it to their future album, (and sadly last realeased album - due to their record company wanting them to be more like U2 *sigh*) you'd see how raw this first album is, the second album is alot more polished and refined, but still retains that rawness that should be a building block for any new bands.
As i said earlier in the review, you can compare it to Muse's Showbiz, that teenage angst is very much alive in JJ72, but where Muse took the album to fantastic ingenius crazyness (aka muscle museum), JJ72 took the other road, and experimented with softer songs, combined with forms of grungey-ness. Which does the originality justice, whilst i prefer Muse to JJ72, JJ72 still has a place in my heart, and is my second faveourite band.
I love what this band has done, its original in every way, yes you can pick out the influences, but the good thing is - the influences don't dominate the sound, which all to easy a road to go down. I don't really dislike any part of the album, as I said some of lyrics are slightly aloof, but that's only the simple rock tracks - which im determined to use an excuse!
If I lost this album, or suffered a nasty knock to the head and forgot them, I'm in no doubt that I'd rediscover them in the depths of my heart, and then be estastic that they never left my soul.
If you're irish and tired of U2, this is the band for you, if you like Muse but have silly numbers of play counts on them - just like me - you'll enjoy this album - possibly eventually love it, you'll enjoy JJ72 the band itself, because they are something special. And I hope after reading this you listen to their tracks, and albums.
Basically, if you want a good rock album, something - not necesserily alternative, but just different, then I highly recommend JJ72. Enjoy. // 8
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