Indie darlings Jaws have just announced the support for their November tour; SUGARTHIEF and Ivory Wave will be joining the group as they play Oxford, Liverpool, Leeds, and more. With their nosedive straight back into the scene that has been their home since 2012, we take a late look at their 2019 album release.
There’s a reason the new release completely escaped my notice, and it isn’t because of any mediocrity to the music. There was no sense of this album being shoved down our throats; no constant posting on the bands’ Instagram stories that we should pre-order the work, and do it NOW. After two years of writing and recording the band released The Ceiling; a work which clearly wraps up the bands’ adoration of their art into one refreshingly developed, still shimmering collection of musings on feeling lost. The dedicated fans listened to it right away, and everyone else was allowed to discover it and fall in love with it in their own time.
‘Please Be Kind’ is perhaps the track that is most reminiscent of earlier releases; of dream-pop that shed a shimmering haze over their listener. It’s dreamy and delirious, but a matured take on their earlier sound. The chorus allows more blatant passion to take prominence, and the guitars don’t drift through the track, but demand moments where they lead. ‘Feel’ is a more catchy take on a similar approach, with refrains where the instruments seem to avalanche onto you.
‘Looking / Passing’ takes us back to the intros of tracks such as ‘Stay in’. The song is retrospective and melancholic, but with this melancholia seen through a lense sprinkled over with something of a dreamlike nature. JAWS haven’t rewritten old songs. They’ve taken new ideas and inspirations – an abundance of them, it seems – and grown up alongside their audience. ‘Do You Remember?’ is still undeniably them, but with a disillusionment grounding the lyrics and tone of the song. There’s no fear of trying a new sound; of testing their own capability to create something dreamlike yet dark; nostalgic yet prevailingly original.
TWELVE INCH 