Share BACKHANDED STING – The Jacknives (Self released)
Backhanded sting? After reading this review, the band will feel that is what I have delivered them but they shouldn’t. They’re not a bad band. It’s not a bad CD either (though I have to say that the more I listened to it, the less I liked it). One insurmountable problem this band had to face in this review is that I just bought the Complete Mercury Runaways anthology. It would be difficult not to notice that the Jacknives and the Runaways cover similar territory; a dangerous region where punk and heavy metal overlap with female vocals on the top. How the two bands approach this territory is what dictates my review.
The Jacknives are a five piece made up of three girls and two boys. The boys take the roles of guitar and drums. Everyone plays just fine and dandy. I’ll probably go and see them when they next play in Sydney. I’ll clap and I’ll shout for an encore at the end. Unfortunately, I also have to write an album review and that means telling you why this disc isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The Jacknives write better lyrics than the Runaways but it is the sheer naive dumbness of the Runaways that wins every time. It’s a bit like when a five-year-old comes running up with a piece of paper covered in crayon squiggles and tells you it’s a picture of a dinosaur. Sure it is, you say and you pin it on the fridge. The Jacknives sound like a very professional and serious band with a career focus. The Runaways could play just as well but sounded like they believed Rock and Roll was still the biggest, most earth shattering rebellion left open to them and that was enough of an end in itself. The sheer hysteria of a buried album track like the Runaway’s “Dead End Justice” shadows anything on the Jacknives’ album not because it’s better song writing or playing (it isn’t) but because even though it is stupid, it sounds like they mean it.
The Runaways had an internal schism between Joan Jett’s punk and Lita Ford and Sandy West’s metal. How they fused these rival elements created their sound. The different influences in the Jacknives come out sounding schizophrenic. This is our metal song. This is our sort of rockabilly song. You know the kind of thing. Fundamentally, they think an album is just a collection of songs and bands are some kind of a democracy and everyone should have a go. Worst of all, some of their songs should have gone directly to the waste paper bin but no-one has the bottle to point out their short comings. They haven’t gotten it together to look at the wider picture. One crap song can destroy 10 good ones. I’m not sure the Runaways did any better in this department either but at least their limit of their scope made it sound consistent.
Finally, let me tell you the overriding reason for the three-and-a-half bottle review. The Runaways are a much better band than the Jacknives but I found their complete works a little difficult to work my way through. I’d be pushed to give the Runaway’s anthology four bottles despite its glorious packaging that includes everything short of your very own Runaway to keep for your own. Given this comparison, I think the Jacknives did pretty well for themselves. What they really need is a dictator, a Kim Fowley of their own. Whilst Kim Fowley was a vile excuse for a human being, he did at least know how to fashion an idea. The Jacknives need someone to tell them when a song doesn’t reach up to the standard. They need to get some quality control. They need to topple their democratic ideals. - Bob Short
1/2
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COBRA COMBAT BOOTS - The Jacknives (self released)
Spindly-legged swamp rock from Perth that gets up on its hind legs and shakes its dazed, bedraggled head before retreating back into the darkness of the city back-blocks. A bit like a West Coast Eagles footballer the day after the random drug test boys have been through town.West Australians live a day's flight away from the rest of the world so they have to do something to amuse themselves. There's a long history of them playing either guitar powerpop or the bent-cowboy-blues thing better than most. One look at the three chicks (one bearing a Stetson, another an axe) and the two (sombrero-wearing/gun-packing) blokes on the inside cover means there are no prizes for guessing in which camp The Jacknives reside.
To be honest, they're more punkish rock than cowpunk and there's a gritty streak the width of the Rio Grande running through these 10 tunes. Krystal Stabyard and Mr Maisen Hell's guitars sit like monster-sized burrs under a wafer-thin saddle and some more tonal variation might not have gone astray, but you expected Kasey Chambers?
A punked-up shuffle like "Running Hot" is more Supersuckers than Slim Dusty, and that's Bryan Gregory's ghost doing fretboard battle with Poison Ivy on "Best Be Dyin". "Put The Black Magic" is pop by comparison. The '50s touchpoints are obvious, in a Southern Culture/Cramps kind of way - like Wanda Jackson on Rohypnol.
Kylie Kreme has a forceful vocal presence that sometimes lurks rather than bursts out of the mix. That's probably the way she wanted it as there was an accomplished captain (Dr Alien Smith) in the production chair. Drummer Bendito is a stand-in, apparently, but does a mighty job behind the kit.
"Cobra Combat Boots" fills out 40 minutes and just as you think a couple of songs are starting to sound samey, the closing knee-shaker "Mexican Standoff" leaps out of the speakers with enough bluster and bad manners to set you reaching for the replay button and asking yourself if the piece of lime in that last Corona wasn't a little lysergic.
There are at least a couple of EPs in the back catalogue, making this the Jackknives' debut album. I've heard many worse. – The Barman
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