Jaill – Traps
“Everyone’s Hip” sang Milwaukee-based three-piece Jaill on their 2010 Sub Pop debut. Fame is a fickle beast however and Jaill’s five minutes seemed brief even in this modern age. On Traps the band now sings “Everyone’s A Bitch”. Whether this is just titular coincidence or some sort of riposte to this fact isn’t certain.
Whichever, That’s How We Burn and its breezy garage/psyche-pop was an ok record and little more. Its beguiling flecks of weirdness kept it afloat, making it easier to forgive its general air of insubstantiality, and, in the interest of brevity, Traps follows a very similar trajectory.
Yet this is real lazy days rather than plain lazy indie – the sprinkling of birdsong amongst the sunny strumming in “Madness” only confirms it. There’s nevertheless a change of pace and direction for the relatively solemn “Million Times”, but Traps remains music to enjoy largely barefoot.
With a nuclear US indie/alt vibe, the likeable summery jangles “While You Reload” and “Waste A Lot Of Things” thus bring to mind The Shins ‘ brand of psyche-pop. And you can add bands like Gauntlet Hair and Nurses into this mix, if the pair were to you lose their Animal Collective fixations that is. They at least seem to share a dynamic if not an out-an-out sound.
Jaill are always at their best however when upping the odd factor and with Vincent Kircher ‘s strangled vocal and the track’s swirling guitar noise “Perfect Ten” ticks all the boxes. The strong melody in “I’m Home” carries the tune as some strange sci-fi FX help to allow the track to rock out. “Stone Froze Mascot” even houses a crazy mangled dance beat and its playful guitar solos render it one of the least bleary on the album.
There’s nothing revolutionary here, but Jaill largely avoid the pitfalls before them. Jaill are a band true to themselves and Traps is a record that doesn’t compromise itself searching for sales. Unfortunately it will therefore fail to impact the year-end best ofs, but if a summer-only version were to be put together you’d be hard pressed to exclude them entirely.
Advised downloads: “Perfect Ten” and “Million Times”.
~Traps will be released June 11th 2012 on Sub Pop”.~