Tuesday 15 September 2015

Jacuzzi Boys 'Happy Damage' (EP REVIEW)


JacuzziBoys have kicked down the door again with new release Happy Damage, and in doing so set a prime example of what the title of their latest EP (probably) means. And if ‘happy damage’ also involves swinging from the light fitting while splintering the coffee table with your battered Converse-clad feet, scattering the yellowing pages of an NME interview with an introverted electro-indie-singer-songwriter onto a beer-soaked carpet while bawling along to joyful garage-punk thrash then it lives up to its moniker almost too well.

It’s no wonder that one of the most accomplished hell-raisers the US has ever churned out – Iggy Pop – is a fan, and while the Miami upstarts are not even on the threads of his coattails there’s more than a pinch of the lust for life he espoused about their sun-drenched racket, which hits like a summer storm. If the colossal chorus of the title track is the twister, then the fizzing ‘Wildflower’ is the cloudburst, refreshing, uplifting and stinging just a touch. The record isn’t just a whirlwind of huge vocal hooks and frenetic energy, however; second single ‘Sun’ is an intoxicatingly trippy gaze through steaming, sun-lashed suburbs.

Look down and the snake-hipped ‘Platform Licks’ is the water laying on the ground, beautiful in the sun but dangerous enough to get you wet if you stamp your feet – and let’s be honest, you always do. The crisp ‘No Sleep’ dries things out, an unsteady strut with nowhere to be and time to enjoy the ride, and ‘Electric Days’ closes the album with a 92-second bounce, still identifiably Floridian but with a propensity to twist into an unexpected punch in the mouth. It’s the climactic forked lightning which flickers and disappears almost before you’ve realised that it’s beautiful and powerful – a little like this six-track EP



Words - Joe Ponting

Happy Damage is out Sept 18th on MAG Records
Jacuzzi Boys official