I’ve only had this computer for a couple of weeks, already it’s starting to screw with me. I’m trying to download tracks for a record that seems genuinely interesting, and yet here I am, stuck in the stone age (or is it the stoned age?) a slave to a shoddy internet connection. But what about my apparent subject matter, Piqued Jacks? What have they got to say about this whole thrice damned situation? The band has put out three six song EP’s in the past few years (Freakish regularity if you ask me), and now they have a pair of new singles out. It’s immediate from the first chords of their latest track No Bazooka that these guys know how to put together a song. Perhaps that’s all that really matters in a day and age where teenagers don’t know what it means to listen to a record, or even a song, the whole way through.
Now admittedly, there’s not much I can write about only two songs, but I’ll give it my best shot. These tracks seem to show a step forward for Piqued Jacks. Perhaps because these tracks are their first written and recorded in the US, it feels as if they have started to embrace their destiny. There is a certain very American quality to this music, a difference from the previous music that isn’t immediately apparent, but is definitely there. On some level it’s probably because the band has evolved as musicians, improving and now able to make more diverse and interesting soundscapes. While older tracks like Amusement Park are certainly very good, they don’t create the fields of sonic bliss that Upturned Perspectives does.
With these two new singles Piqued Jacks have started to tackle something that only the Killers (And to some degree Queens of the Stone Age) have done before them. They’ve managed to create what is essentially catchy pop-rock but mix in prog instrumentation. These guys aren’t just some four piece who are trying to make good by taking some seemingly insane riffs. No, Piqued Jacks are artists of the twenty first century, a band who understand how to connect with millennials, which is a feat in itself. I’m a millennial, and I’m still an electro-space hippy to my peers. Don’t take that the wrong way though, Piqued Jacks are not just another superficial glossy rock band, there is a real depth to the music and this depth is what makes it human. There is no marketing scheme behind this band, only raw and honest sound, some sort of amped up derivation of Chuck Berry’s music.
Have I rambled and romanticized what may just be another crazy group of dreamers? Perhaps. But I think there is something much more going on here, a much deeper reality that these beautiful people are touching on. Your parents told you that you could never make a living with music and shouldn’t dump thousands of dollars into equipment, yet you do it anyway. Well that’s one level of dedication. Now try shifting continents to succeed. I think that’s the most apparent proof that Piqued Jacks are going to rise forth, almighty and powerful. They’re living the American dream, having come from abroad seeking to do what they love, and now they’re getting there, the success is calling and everyone is cheering for them. Let these singles wash over you, Piqued Jacks have come into their own.
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