Jesus Jones
Passages
They broke America, pioneered the 90s electro-rock popularised by Garbage and looked set to be the fraggle U2. It seems a gross miscarriage of rock justice that Britpop did for Jesus Jones just a few short years after these international bright young things hit No.2 in the US with Right Here, Right Now. Yet here we are considering their crowdfunded 2018 comeback album after 17 years out of the studio.
Battling their lingering whiff of Megadog, they strive for contemporary relevance by means of dubstep and Brexit. ‘Now the turkeys are voting for Christmas,’ sings Mike Edwards, while Chemistry, the sultry Stripped and the rollicking pop of Grateful display a rudimentary grasp of contemporary electronica.
The unlistenable One Day At A Time takes a misguided stab at emulating Radiohead’s tunedodging futurism. It’s glitchy window dressing though. For the most part, Passages is a fond, solidly crafted throwback to that forgotten age when every NME cover was a tangle of dreadlocks.
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mark Beaumont