Here's an irony. Slip the promotional copy of this album into your iBook and it'll start whirring in a worrying fashion and then seize up all together. That's just Elektra trying to protect the copyright of the supposed new Oasis, of course, but given the musical style and lyric content of these songs, it wouldn't be a surprise if Jet had declared that no mongrel computer should be allowed to play their record. With eight track cartridges still doing the rounds at boot fairs, it's a wonder 'Get Born' has made it onto CD at all.
It's not hard to work out how Jet's defiantly retro bar room boogie has struck a chord with the British zeitgeist or even why. The hunger for stripped down garage blues over the last few years has led musicians to delve even further back into the basics of rock'n'roll, and it was only a matter of time before someone stumbled into the Stones. Circa 'Sticky Fingers', no one did simplicity better than the Keef and co: a chunky riff, a rattling good time momentum, and easy to consume lyrics about idealised women and smalltown escapism that were perfect for a drunken night out.
There's nothing on this record that has any danger of keeping you from your beer. There are two gears: fast and slow, shoutalong and sobalong. The upbeat tunes are designed for punching the air and savouring the rush of borrowed testosterone flooding through your system. 'Cold Hard Bitch' is sh*t-kicking bravado, The Who shooting the breeze with AC/DC. 'Get What You Need' could be The Kinks cranking up the volume. 'Rollover DJ', with its stench of stale sweat and beer-sodden belligerence, redeemed by a classic pint-waving chorus, is Slade with a chip on their shoulder.
The slowies (to use the correct retro terminology) are sensitivity mauled by blokeish sentimentality. 'Move On', with its referencing of Melbourne's undeniably romantic Flinders Street station, complete with a sneer for a "uniformed man" in authority (like, bummer, huh?), rides deep into Bon Jovi country. 'Look What You Done' should be presented to Liam Gallagher immediately to be recorded as this year's Christmas Number One. It's 'Don't Look Back In Anger' recorded in the style of 'The White Album' with a nod to 'Sonnet' by The Verve. Singer Nic Cester even does a fairly passable Liam impression. 'Timothy' (surely the year's funniest song title) could be a Spinal Tap parody.
On paper, this album should be laughed out of existence. In an age when even Liam and Noel have had hits with dance collaborations, tearing into DJs because they've been "playing other people's songs all night" is absurd. Doubly so, if you do it on an album where there's not a single moment of originality, where everything from the sound right through to the lyrical tone are direct echoes of what's gone before. But somehow, Jet have enough single-minded naivety to make you suspend your cynicism and join in the fun. They're fools. But harmless, rather endearing fools. It's only rock'n'roll, after all.
Call it The Darkness effect. After two years of caring passionately about what's cool and what might not be, about the haircuts of The Strokes and the obscure blues influences of The White Stripes, we've been aching to let rip with some simple guilty pleasures. And Jet are here to hand out the pints and crank up the anthems. Come on in, the party's still raging. Just don't expect there to be much love left over when the hangovers finally kick in.
