Bands that usually get the thumbs up from a certain singer from Paramore tend to get surrounded by hype and do alright for themselves. Case in point, New Zealander’s, The Jury And The Saints who are currently building up a head of steam for the release of their sophomore effort, S/T, but is the love justified.
Brash palm muted riffs spring into life on opener ‘Start Moving’ and you’re immediately hit with the sensation that the tracks title is meant literally. Awash with gang vocals and woah oh’s to boot, ‘Start Moving,’ sets the tone in a care-free way.
The quartet aren’t winning prizes for creativity here, instead, relying on the coarse vocal rally cries of frontman Jesse Smith to drum up a sense of brotherhood and togetherness to have a good time.
The likes of the in-your-face ‘Fever’ are custom made for the sweat pits while the vein popping lead single ‘Focus’ is one of the times when the Kiwis strike gold, harbouring dirty riffs played at a sonic speed with grit, however, these moments are more the exception than the rule.
Like a parrot that is limited to a few words the gruff delivery from Smith backed by his bandmates at every convenient time wear thin pretty quickly and when they do try and mix it up there’s flashes of brilliance to behold particularly with the grungy ‘Monday Morning’ speaking to the masses who long for the weekend.
The defiant ‘Freedom Fighter’ has passion seeping through its pores and will be a live favourite but aside from this S/T meanders into mediocrity. The record does boast some fist-in-the-air anthems but don’t offer anything new to the first half.
With The Jury And The Saints you know what you are getting. Unashamedly boisterous fun rock songs with a punk edge that are made to play live. And even with a lack of variety there’s nothing wrong with that.
