Jump Into The Gospel

At first glance I thought to myself, ‘Oh god, ANOTHER band from NYC’. Now, that sounds horribly unfair, and in a way it is. I acknowledge that. But there are times – especially as a blogger – when you feel like most every band out there sending missives to your mailbox is from Brooklyn. And they all seem to specialize in ‘angular’ guitars, ‘eccentric’ rhythms and ‘defy categorization’. That’s sounds terribly cynical, but you have no idea. There are roughly 700 messages sitting in my email from the last week, and I guarantee 500 of them are from bands based in NYC.

Of course, that’s just jaded blogger talk. I try not to let that dictate what I listen to, but being the flawed human I am, sometimes it wins out. It didn’t in this case, for 2 reasons: 1)I listened to Jump Into The Gospel’s 3 Myspace tracks over and over again for about an hour and found I wasn’t tiring of them in the least bit, and 2)this band actually managed to snag my friend (and fellow blogger) Elhaam as their manager. Why is that important? Well, Elhaam has been in ‘the biz’ for quite some time, and has resisted many a request by bands to represent them. So if these guys lured her in, there was clearly something there. And over the years I’ve come to trust Elhaam’s recommendations.

And indeed, there is something to JITG. They remind me of a higher tempo Spacehog in some ways – but I think that’s mostly to do with the vocalist’s voice (especially in ‘Break’, it’s like a long-lost Spacehog tune). While listening for the first time, you might be duped into thinking it’s just another bunch of boys with guitars, but these fellas really do have a gift for starting a song one way and then turning it around on you in an interesting way. I suspect their live show is quite a trip. Do check them out, I have a feeling they’ll be getting bigger very soon!

Jump Into The Gospel – Break

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