posted 10/01/2008 (Wed) @ 08:00 am
>>> Music Reviews
Jealousy Curve - …This Is For Your Own Destruction EP (2007)
Alternative Rock / Hard Rock / Indie
Gentlemen run for cover
- This is for Your Own Destruction
- Nothing, Nothing at All
- Black Widow
- Spineless
- I’m Sorry
- What a Terrible Joke
- You Lookin to Shake?
Sometimes you just have to rock. Hard. Jealousy Curve can deliver that, no prob. They hide a few extra aces and spades up their sleeves, too. Their …This Is For Your Own Destruction EP: seven massive tracks which each juggle the magnetic opposites of power and delicacy, intelligence and just plain dumb fun hard rock. Growling and yawping guitarwork cinches the deal, along with slick vox from singer Michael Leavy that would make many an aspiring hard rock vocalist green with envy.
Though they can go slow and still work (”I’m Sorry”), Jealousy Curve kick the living shit out of the speakers when they just crank everything. The record opens with the hooky octave glitch-riff of “This Is For Your Own Destruction” ping-ponging between speakers. A primal, larynx-piercing howl joins in. Now, the only way you’ll step away is if you’ve been blown backwards.
The catchy “Black Widow” grooves on a gummy bassline to start. It opens fire with a skittering, eight-legged guitar lick; strums a solitary, echoing, delay-drenched We Are Scientists chord; then completely ignites for a chorus so hard rocking and sticky, its web won’t be cleaned out of your ears for days. “There’s more than a touch of mystery in her chemicals/ Revelation in the shape of her skin/ You’re a rifle to the head of her victory/ But you won’t win.”
“What a Terrible Joke” sweeps the listener along on its rhythmic waves and switchblade musical dynamics, beginning with a lone repeated fuzzbox riff which is transposed heavier and softer throughout the tune, appearing at one point in an upstroking, ska-flirtatious break, and later in the squealing squalor of a guitar solo.
Jealousy Curve’s own judgment of their sound ends up being spot on: pair Matt Bellamy’s love of chest-punching guitar wank and effects pedal molestation with the tried-and-true chug-and-strut of STP and you’ve got this singular band of sports car driver aids. Pair this with another brief but hard rocking EP like Ahimsa Theory’s We Screen For Thieves and settle in for a cup of tea’s worth of blown speaker bliss.
Links
A note…
A mere $9 Paypal’d directly from the band’s Myspace netted me the EP within a few days. Handwritten, it also included a “Thanks!” on the back. They’re just guys scraping by on every sale. Support independent music; if you like it, buy it!
Tags: effects pedals, great, guitarwork, hard rock, muse
