reviews:
Jack Potential: "One Card Wonder" b/w "Blacktop Suicide" 7"
Jawbox: Grippe
Jawbox: Novelty
Jawbox: Dis 77 7"
Jawbox: Savory + 3 EP
Jawbox: For Your Own Special Sweetheart
Jawbox: Jawbox
Jawbreaker: 24 Hour Revenge Therapy
Jets to Brazil: Orange Rhyming Dictionary
Jets to Brazil: Four Cornered Night
Jimmy Eat World: Clarity
June of 44: Four Great Points
June of 44: Anahata
Juno: This is the Way it Goes and Goes and Goes
Damien Jurado: Rehearsals for Departure

Jack Potential: "One Card Wonder" b/w "Blacktop Suicide" 7" A DC Supergroup if there ever was one, Jack Potential has featured members of Clutch and Burning Airlines in its near constant rotating lineup, held down by the steady Mike Harbin, who now plays bass in Burning Airlines. The two offerings here are a pair of hard rocking, pop structured, enjoyable, but overly forgettable DC rock songs. There is nothing really wrong with them, and in fact, many elements are good. The vocalist is a little average, but the percussion is excellent (and I doubt it's only because of guest appearances in the rhythm section by J. Robbins and Jean-Paul Gaster). The first song, "One Card Wonder," is a good song with a catchy chorus, but it fails to latch. The second side has "Blacktop Suicide" which rocks harder and packs more of a difinitive punch than the other. These are on sale from DeSoto mailorder for $2.00 each, so I would suggest picking it up at this low rate. Memorable or not, it's still a good addition to any 7" collection.

Jawbox: Grippe Oh yeah, I like these guys. One of Charlie's favorites. It took me a long time to finally get out of the house and buy it. Actually, I didn't get at the local music store, I bought it online. I really have to admit that I like Jawbox more than I did the first time I was listening to them. I didn't own the CD I was listening to, and I guess it probably requires you yourself to own it before you get eager to listen to it. But I bought a goodie for the first Jawbox CD I bought. I believe this is really good. I like the arrangements for each and every song, and I like the vocalist. I guess it's all good. But when I listen to this album, I start thinking about their other material. I'm wondering if it's as good as this or even better. I don't know what to expect to tell you the truth. All I know is I'll be listening to this for a while down the road. Then I'll go Jawbox CD hunting, since I'm pretty sure some of their stuff is out of print. The great bands always go out of print I guess. But I really got a kick out of this album. A nice addition to any music collection.

Jawbox: Novelty One must wonder what the world would be like if Jawbox had never existed. Surely the world of music would be a different place. Before their break-up, Jawbox and Fugazi were running neck-and-neck for the title of "Band out of DC that influenced more bands." This is the album that mainly got Atlantic Record's attention, and it's proably their best work on Dischord. Grippe was really good, but had too many songs in its CD form. This album has eleven, and all of them rock. This also marks the recording debut of W.C. "$3Bill" Barbot, as well as the final recording with original drummer Adam Wade (Wade went on to play in almost as influential Shudder to Think). All of the material here feels like a showcase for Jawbox's potential, as the majority of the songs hit home, but not as hard or as deep as they could. Everything is great, like I've said a billion times in this review, but a few songs stand out more than the others, like the opener "Cutoff" with its tinny guitars that pummels into you, "Channel 3" with its vocal harmonies, rhythm led "Tongues," and closer "Ones & Zeros." With Jawbox's Atlantic material being out of print, people will be frantic to get their masterpiece For Your Own Special Sweetheart and the self-titled album as quick as possible. Let this review serve as a reminder to those of you who would forget their glorious days on Dischord and would neglect this album and Grippe, since they're just as good as the Atlantic albums.

Jawbox: Dis 77 7" Dischord put this 7" out shortly before the release of For Your Own Special Sweetheart on Atlantic, and it featues a pair of songs that later appeared on that album in very different forms. The A-side is "Motorist" with a drum machine and J. singing as an intro before kicking into a version of the song with a different bassline than the one that later appeared on Sweetheart and only one singing part, along with different lyrics in the chorus. The B-side is "Jackpot Plus!," and it stays fairly true to the latter one, although it's not as layered as the future version would be. Still, this is $3.50 worldwide, and if you'd like a little glimpse of Jawbox at their prime, enjoy this.

Jawbox: Savory + 3 EP This four song EP (CD5 Maxi Single technically) came out when the single for "Savory" was released to radio and MTV. I found it, unbelievably, in a Best Buy in my town. It's pretty good. "Savory" as always is a great song, and will be one of those true indie rock classics, even if it was released on Atlantic. Two of the three other songs are available on the complete Jawbox collection My Scrapbook of Fatal Accidents, those being the excellent "68" and The Big Boys cover of "Sound on Sound," which is also good. Neglected, and it strikes me as odd that it would be, is the two minute blast of "Lil' Shaver" which goes along at a fast clip and is gone before you know it. This EP is strange for other reasons, one of them being that this possesses the same quality that all of Jawbox's other material has, which is necessary repeated listenings necessary before the songs will truly let you embrace them. Still, this is a great find for any Jawbox fan, but those who aren't familiar with or fond of the band should stay back, because this won't change your opinion or sway it one way or the other.

Jawbox: For Your Own Special Sweetheart This review is, in some ways, unnecessary. I know that this album is great. So do you. So does everyone else. What's the news with it? It's not like I need to tell you to go buy this, given that you probably already own it. As for the rest of you: If you don't own it, go get it. This is one of the greatest rock albums ever recorded, period. The fact that most of the population doesn't know that doesn't mean shit. You consider yourself a music fan? Good. Prove it to everyone and scrounge this up somewhere.

Jawbox: Jawbox The year is 1994. You've just released the best album of your career, one for the history books that people will be turning to for years to come. You're on top of the world. Then, after the touring is over with, you realize you forgot one thing: You still need to write another record. What do you do? If you're in Jawbox, you just keep doing what you're doing and hope it all comes out okay. And lo and behold, it does. While the production for this album is better, with J. Robbins finally coming into contact with all the actual equipment in the studio, you'll notice that the main benefit of this type of production job is how great everything sounds. The guitars are crisp and clean on top, with a layer of thrash and distortion below, the drums pound at times and click at others, the bass thumps like a gravitational pull. The most remarkable aspect is J.'s voice; no more of the speak/yell that was intertwined in the earlier records, J. can actually sing now, and it sounds great. This album has some great duel vocals, such as on "His Only Trade" and "Livid," with some heavy tracks ("Mirrorfull," "Excandescent") along with the spaced out and softer material ("Iodine," "The Desert Sea"). A fine follow-up to a band's masterpiece.

Jawbreaker: 24 Hour Revenge Therapy Finally, this punk classic is available to all again. It's been repackaged and some slightly new artwork, and you can actually find it in stores! When someone says Jawbreaker, you automatically think Dear You, their out of print opus on Geffen (no offense, but the CEO of that company should be executed for that blunder). However, I've heard most of that album, and I'd have to say that I like this one better. Most of the songs here hit harder and manage to make you think, mostly about your values and the things that really matter, like on the song "Boxcar": "You're not punk and I'm telling everyone/ Save your breath I never was one." Honestly, who gives a shit about being punk? A relationship's end has never hurt so much as on "Do You Still Hate Me?" And the most scathing track would be "Indictment," which takes a stab at all their critics with lyrics like "I'm gonna write the dumbest song/ It's gonna be a sing along/ All our friends will clap and sing/ All our enemies will laugh and be pointing." This is the best album Jawbreaker made, one of the best of the whole rock genre probably. If you can find it, I would suggest you get it.

Jets to Brazil: Orange Rhyming Dictionary Where does life go after Jawbreaker? Unlike the similarly named Jawbox, whose frontmen J. Robbins and Bill Barbot continued down the musical path with Burning Airlines, Blake Schwarzenbach took some time off from music all together. After moving back to New York City, he lived a normal life again, only recording songs on his four track as a hobby. However, after Texas is the Reason broke up and Chirs Daly ran into Blake, the two hit it off and decided to record an album. Enlisting Jeremy Chatelain from the also disbanded Handsome to play bass, the band dubbed themselves Jets to Brazil, and recorded this, their debut, for Jade Tree Records. It is very impressive. Any real notion of Jawbreaker is gone from this music, as the songs progress with anything but the simple ethics Schwarzenbach's former band held inside them. Multiple guitar tracks, effects galore, and keyboards and synths pop up all over this album. J. Robbins' masterful hands control the technical wizardry behind the scenes, with a crisp, clear production that provides a shining and shimmering view into what this band is aiming for. Topics are in somewhat the same range as Jawbreaker at their happiest and their saddest, with isolation and depression being major themes, but the band also has some upbeat and generally happy numbers. All in all, this is a great debut from a band whose parts are talented and contribute to the greater whole, and is a nice start to life after Jawbreaker.

Jets to Brazil: Four Cornered Night After the blast of distortion and keyboards that was the musical masterpiece of Orange Rhyming Dictionary, Jets to Brazil have come back with another member and a new found "maturity" to their music. I think it's the latter aspect that will soon be the downfall of this band. There's nothing wrong with the music you'll hear when you put on this album, and the songs are well written and thoroughly thought-out and focused. It just seems to be lacking the immediacy that the work of the members previous bands possessed so wonderfully. For instance, on "Air Traffic Control," where there is a series of versuses written with no guitar, and a chorus that is comprised of acoustics, the former bands would have upped the tempo, root-fifthed their way through those versuses and slammed on the distrotion pedal for the chorus. This album sounds too together, too well composed for a group of musicians who came from bands that thrived on raw thought, emotion, and energy. This album also isn't as fun as its predecessor. Where once was screaming, now is crooning, where once was distortion, now is a fucking acoustic guitar, where once was "You keep fucking up my life," now is "Summer girl all summer long you know the winter's wrong." The band can answer all their questions with "Well, it's a new direction!" which will get the follow up, "But was it the right one?"

Jimmy Eat World: Clarity This is like the band you've heard before a million times, only slightly better. Jimmy Eat World have a more developed sense of rhythm, harmony, and melody than most bands that are around these days, and they can swing one hell of a hook, but that's about where their distinctiveness ends. The songs on this album are good, and beat out any other above average pop/rock when it gets right down to it, aside from a few songs, like "12.23.95" with its irritating plucked guitar and drum machine, and "Your New Aesthetic" which has a hook that doesn't catch. This album has several jaw-dropping or stunning moments, like the one-two opening punch of "Table for Glasses" and "Lucky Denver Mint," as well as the last five songs aside from a pretty standard rocker titled "Blister." There are problems abound elsewhere though; the singer sounds like he's stuck in one key throughout the whole album, and the music itself takes very few risks. But the main problem is the production. Any crunch, soul, or backbone this music and/or band had has been completely polished out by Mark Trombino's over production, as it comes across as clean and consumer friendly, and a little irritating without the voice cracks and pick scrapes that helps out indie kid rock so well. Hopefully Jimmy Eat World will find a new producer for their next album.

June of 44: Four Great Points So anyway, June of 44 play this really spaced out math/post/hard rock, and do it damn well. Four Great Points manages to cross the best aspects of Slint and Tortoise with some other bands. The songs are presented in a generally pleasing way, with each song having a memorable, hummable hook or better yet, something even more brain-gripping (I've been tapping the drum intro to "Cut Your Face" on my desk for weeks). A pair of instrumenals ("Doomsday" and "Lifted Bells") throw a wrench into the works, shifting gears from the sing/speak lyrics that dominate most of the record. The first three songs are the best, with the beautifully soft to crashing loud "Of Information & Belief," the scathing "The Dexterity of Luck," and the crazy math rock of "Cut Your Face," all of which display a nice contrast to each other.

June of 44: Anahata June of 44 is back with a bang. Anahata is their most layered, textured, and downright confusing work yet. Rhythmically challenging, with bass and drums moving faster than the other elements like the vocals and guitars, it's strange how the band manages to find any semblance of control or restraint regarding Mr. Erksine and Mr. Scharin. Most of the music moves along at a faster clip than the songs on Four Great Points, and that's new, givin that that album in particular only had one really hard rockin moment on "Cut Your Face." Most of the songs here hit their mark, especially the awesome fifteen minute closer, which is not even close to pretentious as the words "awesome" "fifteen minute" and "closer" can get. So eventually, yeah, this album is recommended by the fine folks at Scientific. Just don't get in expecting to relax and stay seated and not get down at least once.

Juno: This is the Way it Goes and Goes and Goes So, the acclaimed D.C. label (no, not Dischord, the other one) decided to put out something other than a D.C. record. DeSoto, home to such great acts as Burning Airlines, The Dismemberment Plan, Candy Machine, and others, managed to snag this great Seattle band called Juno before Sub Pop or K snagged 'em. Their three guitar attack should be well appreciated in today's standard two guitar/ bass/ drums rock band line-up. The opening track, which has an extremely long name and which I will simply call "The Great Salt Lake," lulls you into a sense of melancholy comfort, and includes the ass-kicking lyric "Rock and roll will never die, but my god it deserves to." You're then slapped by the song "Rodeo Programmers" before being relaxed with "The Young Influentials," and then going through the bands most frantic, angry moment in the best straight-ahead rock song I've heard in quite awhile, "All Your Friends Are Comedians." The album then takes a relaxing turn from there on out, with only one of the five remaining songs being a real rocker, the rest being very relaxing, like the truly awesome "Leave a Clean Camp and a Dead Fire," a nine-minute jam that pretty much equates to what would happen if you put Built to Spill and Jawbox in a blender and hit the liquify button. The record is not without its faults though. Some of the songs near the end run a tad too long, and while the lyrics are good, the vocals sound a little forced sometimes. Overall, this is a very promising debut from a band with an excess of talent, and I can't wait for the follow-up effort, as long as it manages to be as good as this.

Damien Jurado: Rehearsals for Departure If seasons, times, temperatures, and feelings could be transformed into an album, I know exactly what this album and when this album would be: a late summer or early autumn evening, just as the sun is going down, warm outside, with either the person that you love or the feeling of them in the pit of your gut. Half of this album is comprised of rocking numbers (in the sense that they actually have drums), while the other is a more intimate affair, usually just Damien and an acoustic guitar. Both are extremely effective, using metaphors and similies next to outright fingerpointing and literal uses, as the lyrics tell tales of people coming and going, with and without, and all the ways events can effect you. Many of the stories tell of past relationships and what happened, with others telling tales of typical people and typical lives. Yet all the songs convey a feeling of less and regret, even the upbeat numbers like "Honey Baby" and "Tragedy," like Damien's characters are only one step away from himself. For a deeply personal album, this ends up meaning a lot to everyone else who hears it, and it's well worth the money you'll put down for it.