| JET - Shaka Rock |
| Written by Luke Oram | ||
| Sunday, 01 November 2009 18:20 | ||
Perhaps that’s why you thought you’d try and get smart with your third album 'Shaka Rock'. Difficult sophomore album over with, let’s prove our prowess and sensibilities on our third album. I bet that’s what you said. It was a promising start, sure. Hell, ‘K.I.A (Killed In Action)’ is an absolute stonker. Some great rock & roll there, despite those horrid lyrics – “I fell in a ditch full of VCR’s”, “K.I.A in the supermarket?”-whaaa?, and your single ‘She’s A Genius’ is great too, a good old slice of nostalgic, funk-rock; a chorus that’ll stick in your head for days. Real good. But WTF is going on with the dub-step intro of ‘Beat On Repeat’? And what’s with Nic Cester’s faux-English accent? I want to smack him on behalf of the Empire. ‘Black Hearts (On Fire)’ is a bit better – a good old rock anthem; handclaps n’ shit, there’s even a bit of Angus-aping in there, and ‘Seventeen’ is a nice slice of retro piano-rock, nice and nostalgic - even though singing songs about seventeen-year olds is a bit pervish. As for the Spanish explosion in a mariachi-factory that is ‘La Di Da’... Well, I see what you were aiming for there, influences on your sleeve and all that. But can we talk for one second about ‘Times Like These’? The Doobie Brothers called and they want their riff back. Bigtime. Ending on a stoner-country ballad ‘She Holds A Grudge’, wasn’t doing you any favours either. Is that a lap-steel guitar in there? JET. The equation's all wrong. We just want some meat and potatoes rock n’ roll, served up like you did on 'Get Born'. Is that too much to ask? Let Muse get bombastic and trip through genre’s like the next Queen – no-one’s asking you to get clever. |
