Jaguar Love

by Simon T Diplock

Former Blood Brothers fire up a new feral animal

"Modern-day punk-rock royalty indeed. And more than enough reason for such anticipation."

This could have been anything- pop-punk, dance, techno, even some horrible jazz-fusion project- and people still would have been excited about it, people still would have queued up around the block to hear it first. Jaguar Love see, is the new musical roar from ex-Blood Brothers Cody Votolato and Johnny Whitney and former Pretty Girls Make graves guitarist (here sat at the drum stool) Jay Clark. Modern-day punk-rock royalty indeed. And more than enough reason for such anticipation.

The three kings haven’t wasted any time getting their new thing started- the fallout from the quiet but apparently quite messy Blood Brothers split had barely settled before the first news of Jaguar Love kicked up the dust again, and as early as summer last year the band were hitting the studio hard. Songs emerged online, demos were cut, a self-titled EP arrived, and perhaps as expected the ghost of former outfits came out too. There were flashes of the Blood Brothers’ white-hot intensity, splashes of the Pretty Girls’ colour, and while, if it’s possible, Whitney sings in an even higher register this time out, his is still a very recognisable tone. However, if you’re after very much more of the same then prepare to be disappointed (or prepare to look into Past Lives, the other post-Blood Brothers band), because now debut full-length ‘Take Me To The Sea’ is here and this is a very different animal indeed.

Ok so album opener ‘Highways Of Gold’ could be a lost Blood Brothers cut from ‘Crimes’ but further in and the band begin to etch out a personality all their own. ‘Bats Over The Pacific Ocean’ has all the glitz and sparkly glare of glam, ‘Jaguar Pirates’ see-saws between angular experimental rock and something much more danceable, for fans of Converge, The Killers, and the Klaxons, and the mysteriously-titled ‘Humans Evolve Into Skyscrapers’ is glorious- sounding like a DJ running wild and mixing AC/DC, T-Rex and some warped Japanese pop together and somehow creating a masterpiece. Hell, just one minute of the marvellous mess and you can see why The Queens Of The Stone age took this band on tour and the folks at T In The Park were so eager to get them on the bill this year.

They’re not a flawless supergroup, not yet. Some of their songs go on too long- at almost six minutes album cut ‘Georgia’ goes on twice as long as it should (a pacing problem that pops up a few too many times to make this a classic debut)- and stuff like ‘Bonetrees…’ feels awkward in its oddness instead of lithe and proud, almost like its been forced to spray its hair and glitter its cheeks and play at being more flamboyant than it really ever wanted to. But still, mere months after the end of their previous projects no-one should be able to come up with anything near as weird and wonderful as this.

With their first few releases, volleys of exhilarating live shows, and the arrival of ‘Take Me To The Sea’ then, Jaguar Love have shown they can write great original songs, play well, play hard, and more than handle the heavy weight of admiration for their past and expectation for their future. Lord knows what they’re capable of doing next. It might even be that jazz-fusion album.

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