The Jezabels

Prisoner

Written by: TL on 22/04/2012 15:27:49

You know what the most annoying thing in the world is? I'll tell you what: Hindsight is. It's like a friend recommending that you go see a new band that's playing in town, yet you don't heed the recommendation and only later do you take the time to listen properly to the same band's album, only to realise that it's brilliant and that you've missed a perfect opportunity to see a good band in an intimate setting. So far, this has happened to me twice this year, once with Dry The River and now again with upcoming Australian quartet The Jezabels, whose 2011 debut album "Prisoner" I discovered too late for me to catch them when they played in Copenhagen about a month ago, yet it has still gathered scores of plays from me in recent weeks.

The best way to describe The Jezabels to you if you haven't heard them before, is to firstly tell you to think new wave - all big and lofty and soaring, with both echoing piano and massively effect-ladden guitars mapping out a vast, romantic soundscape. Think a-ha on songs like "The Sun Always Shines On TV" or "Hunting High And Low", except imagine the sound dragged into a crisp, potent, 21st century production of the kind you'd expect on a new record from White Lies or Airship. Then add the secret ingredient, singer Hayley Mary, whose voice sounds like something inbetween Kate Bush and Florence Welch (Florence + The Machine) and whose delivery begs adjectives like 'immaculate', 'astonishing' or simply 'breathtaking'.

Listening to the three first songs on "Prisoner", the similarly titled opener, the catchy "Endless Summer" and the expansive "Long Highway" is a musical experience I would liken to watching HD close-up footage of either fireworks exploding in super-slow or flowers blooming at super speed. Frankly it sounds flat out brilliant, and each note picked from the air by Mary squeeses the soul and sends chills down the spine. And a long way down the stretch, the album actually keeps delivering similarly stunning moments at regular intervals, with for instance the centrepieces "City Girl" and "Nobody Nowhere", respectively delivering more summery single-potential at first and then a dose of such dark dramatics that for a moment I wonder if I'm listening to Sharon Del Adel sing on a Meat Loaf composition. And I mean that in the best of ways.

It is a damn shame then, when the album - at an ambitious thirteen tracks, mostly clocking in at close to five minutes - does eventually begin to show such mundane weaknesses as lacking diversity and consistency. On many a listen I've gotten the feeling that the momentum built by the fine "Horsehead" at track eight, is arrested by the serene tranquility of "Austerlitz" and "Deep Wide Ocean", and the five tracks that make up the album's remaining half seem to lack the magical flourishes that snowcap the pinnacles of quality the band climbs on the earlier tracks.

All the way through, it's worth understanding and appreciating, that The Jezabels actually employ a tight less-is-more ethic to the compositions, letting the effects, the arrangements and the acrobatics of Mary's singing do most of the talking, rather than any particularly complex or captivating instrumental signatures. It proves a wise and effective choice early in the voyage through "Prisoner", but towards the end it's hard not to wish that just the slightest pinch of playfulness had crept in here or there for the sake of variety. That being said, "Prisoner" is still well worth the time and interest of the patient listener, both for its refreshing modernisation of new wave and new romanticism elements, and for the jaw-dropping vocal delivery of Hayley Mary. Despite its flaws, this is simply a record the type of which you don't hear a lot these days, and I'm rather sure it will still burn bright in the memories of many even a year or two after its release.

Download: Endless Summer, Long Highway, Horsehead, Nobody Nowhere
For The Fans Of: Florence Welch or Kate Bush singing over instrumentals from a-Ha or maybe White Lies or Airship.. or thereabouts
Listen: facebook.com/TheJezabels

Release Date 16.09.2011
Independent Records

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