Jaguar Love – Take Me To The Sea
6/10

Jilted power pop that shrieks and fizzles with every tumbling guitar line and piano stab and cymbal crash is the style of Jaguar Love’s debut album. The singing is out of key and largely effortless, but it sure makes for an interesting listen! The obvious “takes the cake” tune, Bats Over The Pacific Ocean, scores a double-whammy of vocal whining to the tune of a perfectly syncopated, tight-as-fuck rhythm section. Unfortunately at first listen it doesn’t seem like the rest of the album is going to live up to that winning track, and on second listen a decent portion doesn’t. But with the oceanic connotations of Bats Over The Pacific Ocean’s title, the dreamy escapist feeling that swathes around each song, and the carefree way Johnny Whitney shrills and swoons through chorus has resulted in multiple playings on EMJ radio. Still, I was hugely disappointed with my first listen of Take Me To The Sea, and first impressions last. The song Jaguar Pirates shows that Whitney, J Clark and Cody Votolato are definitely immersed in their punk rock pirate lifestyle, valiantly flaunting any notion of appropriation and declining to stick to the hardcore mould, which is a scene they’re greatly affiliated with. It’s a grand and great gesture to go this sky high with vocals, and when they’re not whiling away album minutes with grotesquely melancholic ballads like ‘Georgia’ it works a treat. Being emotionally expressive without espousing that horrid nu-core emo-gone-wrong notion also earns points. Jaguar Love have obviously made their own formula, and it’s a more toxic, potent brew than their predecessors’ – it’s reared in the most modern of ages.
Sarah

 

Posted by Sarah Gooding under Album, Reviews
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