Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 02/10/06
Label: Atlantic

When Jet first staggered into view in 2003, the UK was ready for some lowbrow, irony-free, style-unconscious retro rock. This, lest you forget, was the year of The Darkness - after two years of being obsessed with taste and image thanks to The Strokes and The White Stripes, people were ready to let rip. Oasis were yet to go back to basics, so Jet stepped up to the job with a handful of second hand melodies and a bunch of ridiculous but endearing beery anthems.

Three years later, the landscape has changed. From The Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys to Editors and beyond, indie's found a natural middle ground between American cool and homegrown hedonism. While for those hankering after a stand in Oasis, we now have Kasabian - as laughable as Jet in their prime in many respects, but much more affectionately so.

Jet, inevitably, haven't changed a bit. They still have two modes - shoutalong and sobalong - and their touchstones haven't progressed beyond The Beatles, AC/DC, and Oasis. Like a dog who enthusiastically brings a stick back to its master for the umpteenth time, they've made an album much like their debut - you've got dumb barstool rattling tunes like "Holiday" and "Stand Up", and stadium ballads like " Bring It On Back" and "Shine On", that sound like they were written with Liam Gallagher specifically in mind. But this time around, will Jet get a pat on their head for their troubles, or a kicking from an ungrateful, fickle audience?

You have to suspect the latter lies in store. With their debut, part of the charm of Jet was the sheer guile of their songwriting - the fact they'd lifted so blatantly from "Lust For Life", "Sticky Fingers", "Be Here Now", etc - but this time they don't have any borrowed favourites to see them through. And when you don't have the fun of playing spot-the-steal, all you're left with are wishy washy pastiches and a sense of growing fatigue.

To be specific, "Shine On" contains the following. Four barefaced Oasis rip offs. Two AC/DC tributes (with a Brian Johnson vocal on "Holiday" and a Bon Scott one on "Stand Up", er, cleverly). A couple of Lenny Kravitz homages. And a couple of songs that suggest there might be a sightly more worthwhile band lurking somewhere deep within, if only Jet could see past their idols. "That's All Lies" has a cool, rattling energy, and a pop heart (albeit with a nod to early Damned), that feels refreshing. The light Everly Brothers harmonies of "Eleanor", meanwhile, show that they can manage a slow song
that isn't in hock to the Gallaghers.

Do Jet have much of a future? According to one esteemed music criticism website, which posted a YouTube video of a monkey drinking its own urine as a review of "Shine On", it would appear not. A flippant piece of comedy, but even so the message for Jet has to be the one our simian ancestors faced millennia ago. Evolve or die.

    by Ian Watson