Audio By Carbonatix
Two helpings of rootsy strum-and-twang from unexpected sources this week, beginning with an appearance by the hardy indie vets in Jets to Brazil at Trees on Friday night. Singer-guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach, as every magazine and newspaper profile written for the rest of his life will happily inform you, used to front the fervent Bay Area pop-punk trio Jawbreaker, a band loved by many proud denizens of the underground and ignored by many more mainstream rock fans once the group signed to a major label. Perfecting Loneliness, the third album Schwarzenbach’s released with the Jets, feels like the product of someone carrying around that kind of baggage: It’s handsome but ragged guitar-rock whose little stylistic touches–staticky field recordings, yawning lap steel, lots of creamy keybs–attempt to soften the blow of Schwarzenbach’s inevitable and time-tested melancholy. Most of the time they don’t succeed. The urban cowboys in London’s Grand Drive, at Gypsy Tea Room on Monday, fare better on their new self-titled CD, a made-for-Yanks collection of cuts from the group’s three U.K.-only full-lengths. Songwriters (and brothers) Danny and Julian Wilson hit all the thematic bases you’d expect them to–“It’s hard when you feel that no one really cares,” “I can barely recognize this place,” “I’ll be in a bar/I’ll sit by the door”–but their breezy West Coast arrangements and knot-tight harmonies make the familiarity comfortable, not tedious. Who’ll join the coalition of the willing to support English Americana?
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