(album, Eye See Sound)
Some great albums float pleasantly out of the speakers like a summer zephyr, alighting upon the ear in an agreeable manner, others ooze out; creating a cumulative effect that results in an experience that begins with toe-tapping and ends in an uninhibited frug. Black and Blue simply detonates.
In the olden days (when a man was a man, a punk was a punk, and Brian James was in the Damned), Black and Blue would have been one of those albums that got positively strip-mined for singles by an avaricious record company. As it’s becoming increasingly hard to actually buy a single these days, and the Jesuses don’t have an avaricious label, that’s not going to happen here. All of which does nothing to alter the fact that this is a disc packed full of tracks that stand up on their own, then hurl themselves around your parlour, before heading off to the kitchen in search of a bottle of merlot.
Perhaps the best way to describe the What Would Jesus Do sound is to call it a genuine gestalt. The use of such Germanic terminology is entirely apposite, especially given that some of the sounds John and Gemma coax from various electronic widgets can be viewed as part of a lineage that can be traced back through the likes of Del Dettmar, to the Krautrock titans such as Cluster and Harmonia. This synthesized wizardry ranges from fragile evocations of damaged tenderness, all the way up to effects that basically sound like God beatboxing. Atop this cybertronic maelstrom sits Amy’s tectonic layer of elephantine bass and Tim’s powerhouse guitar, which provide melody and coruscating attack in equal measure. Then you have the vocals, a mixture of affecting solo contributions, sparky interplays, and spine-tingling harmonies, which deliver lyrics that evoke the psycho-geography of modern living and the minefield of sexual politics and are evocative to the point of ultra high definition.
After a thin slice of contemporary musique concrete, Black and Blue thunders forth with its eponymous opener; part of a triple whammy than kicks off the disc with a boot the size of the Ritz. A visceral vérité, ‘Black and Blue’ explores the bruised topography of our pint-and-a-fight culture amid bursts of pulsing effects, churning guitars as Tim and Amy lock together and pull apart simultaneously, delivering dual vocals that define the landscape of a small town Saturday night. All jet stream guitar, booming bass and catchy hooks, ‘Your Awful Kids’ occupies the same territory, deconstructing today’s Kyle Kulture with prescience and wit. The quartet’s titanic ‘The Girls Are In Charge’ completes the opening triptych of modern living, emerging as a witty and evocative exploration of sexual politics that extends the line of Gang of Four/Au Pairs post-punk observation and garnishes the whole domestic battlefield with fearsome bursts of sonics.
The driving soundclash of ‘Boomtown Twats’ (‘It’s about twats!’) provides another high street shop window for the vocal duo’s meticulously observed lyrical barbs, before Amy’s plaintive delivery ushers in ‘The Leccy’. A modern day dystopian classic, the track sees the band dip way below escape velocity to create a truly captivating number that can be described as the aural equivalent of an Alan Sillitoe rewrite of ‘The Day My Pad Went Mad’. Although ‘The Leccy’ sounds like an earthier more grounded version of the Young Marble Giants, the band’s trademark lyrical wit ensures that the song is far more than an exercise in evocative pathos.
Then, Would Would Jesus Drive take the whole thing one step further. ‘You Can’t Be Too Careful’ is quite possibly the most prescient evocation of the psychology of modern living yet committed to disc. This is the modern world. The song features an internal monologue that Virgina Woolf would have killed for, it renders street life far more real than any number of faux urban grimers, or angry revolutionaries could hope to do. Sirens wail, guitars collide and Brobdingnagian beats are interspersed with gentler sections of pristine beauty.
Returning to the Germanic theme I shoe-horned into this review earlier, ‘Transylvania Time’ is the archetypical ohmworm – an unstoppably infectious monster, embellished by some nifty Dr. Phibes keyboards and crowned by a trenchant morning-after reflection upon the twilight lifestyle. This is a track that’ll twist you into the floor, mama.
‘I Think We Rushed Into This’ is another change of pace on an album that demonstrates more range and variety than a very rangy various thing. A recountment of domestic ennui and heart-twisting break-up, the lyrics press through dense layers of Wurlitzer jukebox melody as the crystalline harmonies of the verse are eroded by transcendent, stratospheric chorus. Similarly soaring, ‘Love Is…’ updates ‘Hanging On The Telephone’ for today’s voicemail crowd. Exposing the isolating aspects of relationships with customary wit, the track is a cybernetic hoedown that – despite its lyrical content – apologises to no one, bub.
The claustrophobic and haunting ‘This Skeleton’ finds WWJD of the heliosheath of their eclectic palate. Driven by an insistent bassline, adorned by Amy’s valedictory vocal, the track sees subtle effects phase in and out as the Banshees collide with Neu! like abandoned Sputniks drifting across an un-looked at sky. Black and Blue closes on an exuberant note with ‘Fragile Mansions’, a testament to making-do that cuts another slice of life from the WWJD loaf. Rendered transcendent by Tim’s dynamite riffola, this is the song that will get optioned to soundtrack everything once the band achieve their due status.
As it stands, What Would Jesus Do face two challenges; to maintain the standard set by what is unequivocally one of the best debut albums of the last decade; and that of reaching the kind of mass audience this music demands. The latter is up to the likes of you – get the album, kick up a hoo-hah about it, tell your friends … fuck it, tell your enemies. The former, if tracks such as live set opener ‘Masquerade’ and newie ‘Hypnotised’ are anything to go by, is no problem.
Get Black and Blue Direct: www.whatwouldjesusdrive.co
See WWJD and all manner of other great bands: www.eyeseesound.tv
