Another day, another dollar, another London band who met at a party.
The
first eighteen seconds of Sandy are, in this context, new. It opens,
almost
unaccompanied, to some frankly bizarre vocals: James Walsh meets
Kate
Bush at a Weimar cabaret in Camden in 1979.
Sadly, the promise isn't met. The song tries hard, wheeling out
scratchy
guitars and barked choruses - but C-Jags are only a three piece, and as
Paul
Van Oestren's voice normalises, the holes in their sound never let this
reach above the standard indie yelping. For dirty rock, it's all sadly
neat:
distortion that purrs, chord changes that pass properly over the
beat.
Drought; unfulfilled promise; absence - this is the sound of C-Jags.
Something else is needed: it's The Strokes without Nick Valensi;
B.R.M.C. with fewer drugs; Adam Ant with only one
drummer.
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