Light-hearted anti-folk opens with Jake’s slurry hollering over acoustic guitar on We’re Alright, the arrangment shuffling between summery Jack Johnsonisms and scruffy Jimmy Eat World melodic rock. Amnesty features a vocal that awkwardly growls ‘I won’t learn to fight’, occasionally getting close to Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem guttural yells.
Despite the name, for the most part, Jake and the Jellyfish are just Jake, and perhaps the ska-reggae grooves when performed as basically as they are lose a little variety that perhaps a richer instrumentation would give them. Jake’s lyrics take a political bent on Spare Change as he cries ‘No more for war!’ over and over, his guitar light and jovial in the background. When he mellows his voice out on Same Old, Same Old things take a huge step forward, ‘I’m playing gigs mostly to my friends’ he grumbles wearily yet hopefully, the track is a sweet and truthful slice of life, when Jake’s gaze is more introverted his lyrics improve and the connection between his voice and the words is stronger and less artificial.
A short, somewhat ragged EP that finds its voice in its closing minutes and suggests that Jake and the Jellyfish could move confidentally away from what begins as a somewhat cliched punk-folk style into something a little more affecting and arresting.
[Rating:3]
