Reviews

It’s starting to get to that point in my punk-music-listening-to career where I can make snap judgments that are more or less correct. Last weekend, I bought a CD (North Lincoln’s Truth is a Menace) after hearing a song-and-a-half. But honestly, twenty seconds would have done it.

“That’s all you wanted to hear?” the dude at the record store asked.

“That’s all I need,” I answered. “I know my style when I hear it.”

Ignoring how fucking haughty that made me sound, I bought the album, went home and reveled in my top-notch deductive abilities. Well, as easy as it is to know what is my style, I know just as well what isn’t. And Jet Lag Gemini definitely is not.

All of twenty seconds into “Run This City,” the first track off Fire the Cannons, I knew I was in for a tough listen. This song alone features not one, but all of the following super-annoying qualities: single tonal quality harmonizing; mainstream, pop-punk, Fall Out Boy-style vocals; perfect, multi-layered studio sound quality; dance-rock beat, radio single-readiness, catchy-like-a-commercial-jingle chorus (which was way overused), random talked/shouted section, and finally, lame, Guitar Hero-esque guitar solo.

While “Run This City” may be the most annoying track on the album, it is by no means an exception. Most songs contain these same tragic qualities, plus some gimmick which sets each one apart from its album-mates: “Every Minute” has the jazzy, big band breakdown, “Fit To Be Tied” has the bluesy intro, “Bittersweet” has the final chorus sung in rounds, “Keep This With You” has a slightly “Stairway to Heaven” style guitar, etc. However, without these little tricks, every song blends together into a messy pool of dancey, sugary, overproduced and glossily-packaged goo.

Above all else, JLG has that infuriating quality of sounding like something I’ve already heard, but I can’t put my finger on, mostly because I can’t remember the names of any of the crappy bands JLG sounds like. For some reason, the closest comparison I could come up with was a Killers/Goldfinger hybrid, but I don’t know—Goldfinger was okay sometimes. Jet Lag Gemini is nothing more than a synthesis of clean, soulless studio music, showy guitar skills and whatever mediocre trend is going on in the mainstream punk world. I’m willing to concede that there’s an audience for this kind of stuff,  but my (admittedly a bit elitist) Midwestern heart is unmoved.