Last year saw the global release via Napalm Records of Cock Rockin’, the debut album from Australian rockers Jackson Firebird. Already stirring up eager appetites in their homeland, its riotous expanse of multi-flavoured and feistily raw rock ‘n’ roll quickly went to work on a new expanse of ears and appetites with great success. Now the duo of guitarist/vocalist Brendan Harvey and drummer/vocalist Dale Hudak unleash its successor Shake The Breakdown, another riotous explosion of blistering heavy rock that incites the instincts to have a ball.
Things get swiftly hot and heavy with opener Mohawk Bang!, the track spewing tangy grooves and firm handed rhythms from its first breath. Vocals similarly leave nothing in the locker as they shuffle with zeal on the riotous stride increasingly brewing within the rousing encounter. Southern rock with a splatter of Rage Against The Machine spicing, the track is a storming start to the release, revealing new maturity and prowess in the band’s sound without losing any of the raw tenacity and incendiary texture which gripped throughout the band’s first album.
Get Away twists and grumbles next with a dirtier air and coating to its grouchy presence. Growling somewhere between Motorhead and Nirvana, the track is a web of insatiable grooves and rapier like beats luring a just as hungry appetite from the listener before New Wave parades its heavy hard rock revelry to again anthemic effect. Its skin also has an earthy tone whilst the fingers of Harvey create blues tinged squalls of sonic enterprise to lick lips over within the adrenaline driven charge of the song.
Funk inspired grooves writhe throughout the blues spawned High Love next, its rockabilly seeded shuffle alone inescapable addiction but just as mightily matched by the searing contagion spawned by the guitar and speared by the scything rhythms of Hudak. Musically and vocally the track agreeably reminds of US duo, In The Whale, leaving slavery in its tail wind for the thick delta blues bred tempting of Sin For Your Lovin to reinforce, which it does with in fine swamp style before the first of two covers on the album teases ears. The first is a version of Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls, Jackson Firebird turning it into a distortion soaked rock ‘n’ roll bellow which leaves a smile and potent satisfaction behind, if not the option to add it to the favourites within Shake The Breakdown.
Devil’s Door soon has ears and hips swinging next with a The Black Crowes meets Turbonegro swaggering within a sonic witchery, whilst Voodoo pushes those tones into even more eventful and resourceful endeavours through a creative maelstrom flirting with the recognisable essences of bands such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Keys, and Pearl Jam. The song equally creates its own character and essence to powerfully entice with before stepping back for the punk ‘n’ roll devilry of Headache Mantra to have its moment of glory lined with a compelling glam metal, rap metal, and noise rock lunacy.
The slow sultry shimmer and stroll of Sick ´n Tired soaks ears next but is soon providing expulsions of heavy boned riffs and commanding rhythms which free themselves from the bluesy climate from time to time. It is an incitement loaded with ‘deceit’ too, the song expressing being “sick ´n tired of playing the blues” and confirming it with Zack de la Rocha and co inspired eruptions.
The album’s second cover is its penultimate track too, Jackson Firebird just stirring up the passion with its rousing take on the Shirley Ellis classic The Clapping Song. Grooves are as virulent and addictively flavoursome as the organic anthemic instincts of the song and verse itself are overwhelming, the union ensuring there is no escaping the breathlessness grasping lungs and body by its close, not that the spidery sonic web of the album’s title track cares as it wraps the listener in a mouth-watering fuzz ball of blues temptation and rhythmic incitement which just gets more furious, tenacious, and compelling across its fiery body.
As its predecessor, Shake the Breakdown leaves a lustful want of more whilst pushing the band’s instinctive diversity of sound and heart fuelled hunger to rock ‘n’ roll to new heights. The bottom-line is that this is another encounter which demands it should be added to that must have list of 2015.
Shake The Breakdown is available now via Napalm Records.
Pete RingMaster 08/09/2015
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