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
Happy Damage is out Sept 18th on MAG Records
