In the press notes for Jade Hairpins‘ new album, frontman Jonah Falco writes about the demands of making music – though he could easily be talking about any creative profession: “When you form a band and commit to touring and recording, there’s an expectation that what you’re making is something that someone needs to hear.”
Bravely, Falco steps forward as the reason we’re here. His anxiety fuels Get Me The Good Stuff from start to finish. Its hyperactive, semi ass-less collage of largely early-70s British rock keeps pace with his efforts to avoid silence. The restless salvos of vocal harmonies and crashing drums are the tide that carries him through his days, or act as a bulwark against intrusive thoughts. When there are pauses, like the harpsichord synth breaks in opener “Let It Be Me”, they don’t stand a chance against the stampede. “Run free”, the choir sings. “Hide me”!
Their label compares the sonics to having stacked things on top of each other evermore precariously, but it’s not edge-of-your-seat stuff. Rather, its page-skipping, caffeinated survey of rock history gets disorienting. Jade Hairpins avoid rock royalty but never get so arcane that you can’t follow. T. Rex gets referenced lyrically. We hear Freddie Mercury, but in “Keep Yourself Alive”/ pre-baroque Queen. We glimpse early mod Who (“Our House Doesn’t Change”), yet “L.I.E.” and “Live Free Underwater” recall Cheap Trick ragers. Then there’s all that glam: Slade, Wizzard, Mud, Gary Glitter, the Sweet.
Get Me The Good Stuff noticeably swerves around The Beatles, Stones, guitar solos, U2, and modern-rock giants such as Radiohead, Foo Fighters, and White Stripes. It’s hard not to notice Talking Heads within “My Feet On Your Ground”, but it’s in the middle of an arc from the title track to “Lost In Song” that’s more clearly in-tune with turn-of-millennium post-punk like Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads, !!!, and Beta Band-spinoff The Aliens. Once again: eclectic but not opaque.
All of this gives Falco plenty of pedestals from which to launch his shadowboxing brain. “It’s the light / Not the tunnel I fear”, he sings on “Telltale Flyover”, being just one of dozens of examples. “Lost in song / I’m lost in song / Don’t you think / Just run”, goes “Lost In Song”. In pop, sad often equals slow or arrives in a Beach Boys-style happy melody/downer lyrics inversion. As mentioned, Give Me The Good Stuff just wants to run. The layered harmonies create the feel of a busy, Broadway spectacle whose budget cuts have forced a reshuffle as an amped-up power-pop quartet. Falco acts like a pacer who’s also in a fight for his life. If an audience expects the Good Stuff, there are worse places to find it.
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