Five albums in, it shouldn’t be too much to ask for people to love this band and their unique sound. This review could be reduced to three words; “Awesome, Five Stars.” That should be enough of an introduction, description and summary of Jackal’s best album to date. 

Sparkle retains that raw feel from the previous albums, raw in the sense that it sounds like a band in a room feeding off each other’s energy and also raw emotionally like a spigot to the heart. This isn’t a dead pan singer reciting other people’s poetry while a band rehash chords that have been and done. There is some imaginative Sonic Youth meets Pink Floyd worthy experimentation going on here.

And that mixing. For something that feels like a live, full band one-take it’s amazing the sound isn’t squished into a sonic mud. It’s so clear that it feels like you could almost slide your hand between the layers.

Sparkle is an evolution of Castle in the Air and an almost total deviation from the heaviness of Only Everything. It’s more of a laid back album. A kind of Post-Seventies dreamer sound. Well… the largest portion of the album is. Go-Go Star and The Funny Side don’t belong grouped next with anything; I’ve never heard anything like the energy on those tracks.

There are Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness vibes mixed in with the other influences. Excuse the Smashing Pumpkins reference, I’ve just watched the Graceful Swans of Never documentary, but Jackal, just like the Smashing Pumpkins, change their style with every release. Between songs even. No one would pick the George ‘Gabby’ Hayes would jump forth from behind the punky, no-wave opener Go-Go Star (my favourite track on the album). And it would be hard to pick that those songs were made by the same band that made Spoons and Hammers.

Still on the Smashing Pumpkins analogy, there was a quote in that documentary from Norm Winer, the station manager for a Chicago radio station, about Adore being a personal record, and with personal records it can be hard finding an audience that can relate.

Saying vanity projects don’t have the mass appeal puts the onus on the band to provide music the masses will enjoy.  The masses listen to terrible music. It should be up to them to find good music out there. Jackal isn’t the kind of band to make crap music just so the public will be told by television that they're good. Their advice to aspiring musicians in a 2012 interview was “don’t try and follow the crowd or the scene or whatever. The only real trick for writing good songs is to use your imagination, just try and play whatever music feels natural to you and don’t worry about whether or not other people will like it.”

It’s advice that I feel Jackal follow themselves. I’ve been trying to peg the band since I first heard the Pantera/Led Zep heaviness of Rivet Head, and through my three album journey with loving this band I’ve decided that kind of “Whatever, I’ll do what I want” ethic is what defines the band. You can’t peg a band that is able to be proficient at so many different genres while giving it their own distinctive sound.

Sparkle is available from the Jackal Bandcamp page (http://jackalband.bandcamp.com/).

• 1
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• 2
  Horror Story
• 3
  Fraser Ross
• 4
  Fur Patrol
• 5
  Michelle Rounds
• 6
  L.A.B.
• 7
  Devilskin
• 8
  Coridian
• 9
  The Boondocks
• 10
  Late to Chelsea

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  The Phoenix Foundation @ Meow Nui, Wellington - 14/12/2024

• 1
  APT.
  ROSÉ And Bruno Mars
• 2
  DIE WITH A SMILE
  Lady Gaga And Bruno Mars
• 3
  BIRDS OF A FEATHER
  Billie Eilish
• 4
  TASTE
  Sabrina Carpenter
• 5
  I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY
  Gracie Abrams
• 6
  ESPRESSO
  Sabrina Carpenter
• 7
  SAILOR SONG
  Gigi Perez
• 8
  LOSE CONTROL
  Teddy Swims
• 9
  A BAR SONG (TIPSY)
  Shaboozey
• 10
  GOOD LUCK, BABE!
  Chappell Roan

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