Jaguar Love “Take Me To The Sea”

4/5 

When Seattle band The Blood Brothers called it a day in October 2007, many were left wondering what would be next? 

They didn’t have to wait long for an answer, as in the same year singer Johnny Whitney and guitarist Cody Votolato- along with Jay Clark of Pretty Girls Make Graves- announced their new band Jaguar Love. Within a year they had demos recorded and signed to Matador Records, on which they released their self-titled EP and this year, their debut album Take Me to the Sea, (best described as a mixture of danceable upbeat pop tunes and tank growl rock songs laced with surreal lyrics wailed with soul).

It opens with the ‘almost-show-tune-styled’ Highways of Gold, a driving sing-along pop track that you can’t help but be infected by, into the acoustic bounce of ‘bats over the pacific ocean’ in which Whitney croons “I got evicted from my house/all my shit’s on the lawn”, before the childlike chant of the chorus… “because liars own the world hey hey”. The more laid back ‘Georgia’ has a traditional vibe drowned in a rich organ backed by a young girl’s story of struggle and regret, which builds to a crowd participation outro of “ohh la la la/oh la la la”. And if the White Stripes jammed with Jay-Z whilst drinking vats of red bull they would end up with something close to Humans Evolve into Skyscrapers. From the complex rhythms of Bonetrees and a Broken Heart to the floating clap-along of the album closer My Organ Sounds Like…, Take Me To The Sea is, overall, a hook-filled pop record mauled in the best way by a unique and intelligent style of writing rock music.

- Adam Bennett