Jawbox: For Your Own Special Sweetheart
Jawbox : Atlantic Records :: Erik Bedard : Seattle Mariners
This is Jawbox’s major label debut, and I’ve heard there was a lot of friction between Jawbox and Atlantic. The artist almost always comes out smelling like roses in stories like that because nobody likes record labels, and for good reason. Still, I can understand their disappointment with this album, because it’s nowhere near as good as what they thought they were getting based on Grippe.
Like the recently reviewed Laid, this album is a heaping pile of okay. More than a mixed bag of good and bad songs, it’s more like song after song that is entertaining but not something that makes your life better for having heard. The catchy melodies from three years prior are mostly gone, with the band instead relying on a rumbling bass, powered by my new favorite bassist, Kim Coletta, filled out with alternately gritty and chimy guitars. The dissonance is powerful and exultant, but it would have been better served as the background to a skateboarding video rather than highlighted as an event deserving of your attention.
The highlights are “Reel,” the laser-focused and lightning-fast “Breathe,” and “Cruel Swing,” which has a bit of a lounge lizard nightclub feel in its lazy walking style, but it’s still full on Jawbox heavy, and the juxtaposition completely works. The absolute lowlight is “Green Glass,” and the less said about it, the better.
I’m still not sure if I liked Jawbox or Jawbreaker back in the day. The mediocrity of this album is a point in favor of Jawbreaker, but “Cooling Card” sounds kind of familiar in both title and song.
Rating:
Mixers: “Breathe”
Non-keepers: “LS/MFT,” “Green Glass,” “Whitney Walks”
Filed Between: Grippe and Jayhawks (Hollywood Town Hall)
Tags: 1994, 3 lunchboxes, CD reviews, J-mez' collection, music
July 19th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
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