Review by Paul Monkhouse for MPM
Heading for an arena near you soon, Glasgow’s Black Star Jackals have mastered the art of ridiculously catchy songs that demand you master the twin coordination of dancing whilst rocking out.
This new EP from the quartet highlights this knack and speaks of a talent born to do this, the band themselves being formed just a scant couple of years ago.
‘Hollow’ kicks things off, it’s punky start transforming into bristling New Wave style hard rock that has a distinctly American feel to it. Taking on bands like Green Day and winning with a spiky solo and a formula that has more balls and melody, Black Star Jackals are obviously not here to take prisoners.
They add a definite touch of funk with both ‘Down This Road’ and the aptly named ‘Party People’, the former another slice of punky melodic rock that lifts whilst being lyrically quite dark and the latter custom built to be played at the aforementioned stadiums and from the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury.
As if hewn from an action film soundtrack, ‘Always The Same’ mixes a gorgeously spiralling melody with a barbed attack on the chorus to great effect and the EP concludes with a live, acoustic version of ‘Down This Road’ which really lets the song breathe, shorn of its electric sheen.
With their massive crossover potential and stellar material, it looks like Black Star Jackals are assured of the big leagues.
Debut EP Hollow is released Friday 15th October.Recorded & produced a tVenice of the North Studios, Glasgow https://linktr.ee/BlackStarJackals
The band are:
Kieran McFarlane (vocals/guitar)
Steven Joseph (guitar/vocals)
Callum MacPherson (drums)
Max Lamprecht (bass)
Stream on Spotify: http://bit.ly/blackstarjackalsspotify
https://soundcloud.com/blackstarjackals
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https://www.facebook.com/blackstarjac…
