Jaggers x Lines - Album Review: Burn Cycle
Dunedin EDM (Electric Dance Music) duo Jaggers X Lines have
been putting in the mahi (work) over a few years; headlining their own shows and
playing support slots to some credible touring acts including looping
wunderkind Tash Sultana.
The pairing of Eliana Gray and Morgan Smilie describe themselves as ‘alt-pop weirdos’, and it’s a fitting description.
As their debut full length album progresses, it's easy to hear that they’ve captured these songs at the right time. Right from the Let's Go vocal sample on Problem Drinking which sounds like it comes from an 80's jazzercise album, the tone is set for a great debut release. Burn Cycle is beautifully produced with Morgan Smilies’s expertly crafted beats providing an addictive canvas for Gray’s vocals to weave across.
The press mentions ‘Gray healing from trauma’, but there’s no heaviness, or melancholy, or self-indulgence here, no ‘oh poor me’. Lyrically it sounds like someone who’s been through an unfavourable experience or two but is through the other side and heading toward celebration. If one takes the words or event theme of Let Me Let You In in a literal way, it could tell of someone who’s been emotionally or even physically burnt in a relationship and is hoping a new friend or partner can help her break down the walls they’ve put up to protect themselves from hurt…Or I’m way off base, and it’s a metaphor. Let Me Let You In is one of the more up-tempo numbers on the album and could even get this partially fossilised reviewer dancing.
Smilie is a great producer with a keen ear for great samples and song construction, whether it's on slower numbers like Hold Me Tighter or Soft Little Lights he knows where to fill space and how to let songs breath with space.
In the 1980's and into the 1990's the electronic dance music genre in some ways took up where progressive rock left off with long remixes designed for a drugged-out dance floor, but that couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to Jaggers X Lines first full length offering the songs are succinct.
The 9-song album closes with the absolute banger that is Losing My Breath which stomps along for just 2:49 and in this not-so-humble reviewer’s opinion could easily have been twice that length.
Burn Cycle is a strong and confident first full-length release which should set Jaggers X Lines up for a fantastic career.
About Jaggers x Lines
Formed in the early morning hours of 'world's smallest bar' where Gray used to work, a jam session transformed into a debut EP Letters, recorded in Smillie's bedroom over the course of two weeks. Four singles, a national tour and an impending debut album and music video later, the scratch-happy duo is finding out exactly what happens when you filter the mind of a pop-obsessed poet through the beats of a producer who grew up in Dunedin's underground MC scene.
Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Jaggers x Lines
Other Reviews By darryl baser
MEDaL - Album Review: Sequela
14 Dec 2022 // by darryl baser
Christchurch trio MEDaL are a combination of many years of New Zealand musical history. Singer and guitar slinger David Mulcahy was in JPSE and Superette, bass player John Billows has spent time with The Renderers and Dark Matter and drummer Mark Whyte is part of Into The Void.
Read More...
The Bobby Holidays - Album Review: At The Beach
13 Dec 2022 // by darryl baser
The Bobby Holidays' At The Beach opens with the song Jane, syncopation is to the fore with a great horn section blowing against bass, drums and guitar. The song has an up tempo happy summer vibe.
Read More...
Mad Cow - Single Review: Same Boat
01 Dec 2022 // by darryl baser
Same Boat is the latest single to be released Taranaki 3-piece Mad Cow. Mad Cow are mainstays of the New Plymouth have been around since the 1990’s in the North Island’s music scene, evolving from school band No Comment.
Read More...
23 Nov 2022 // by darryl baser
It might seem like George D Henderson has been a part of the New Zealand music landscape for about as long as Keith Richards has been playing guitar. He’s been in the Flying Nun arena with The Puddle based in Dunedin.
Read More...
Nika - Single Review: Saviour Complex
03 Nov 2022 // by darryl baser
A song with an interesting title will always grab my attention, and the idea of people with a saviour complex has always fascinated me, so when the new song by Nika called Saviour Complex was offered to me to review I almost somersaulted. The song opens with a gently and alluring piano melody before Nika’s voice kicks in and from the first notes some vocal training is obvious.
Read More...
The RVMES - Single Review: Simple Things
05 Oct 2022 // by darryl baser
Oh My God. There are bangers then there’s this tune.
Read More...
VÏKÆ - EP Review: Love Games
25 Aug 2022 // by darryl baser
Veronika Bell, known to music fans as Vikae, has been composing and producing music for a good few years, and is gaining some crossover traction between the dance and pop worlds. While she writes many of her tunes on a piano, and can perform them beautifully with piano and her impressive voice, it is the dance-styled pop versions of her tune which have been garnering her acclaim.
Read More...
Mecuzine - Album Review: Locksmith Thief
21 Jul 2022 // by darryl baser
Now that’s a great way to open an album. Bruised and Broken is the first track of Mecuzine’s new album Locksmith Thief, and my god what an epic track to open their new record.
Read More...
Most Viewed Artists
Latest Galleries
NZ Top 10 Singles
- TOO SWEET
Hozier - BEAUTIFUL THINGS
Benson Boone - LOSE CONTROL
Teddy Swims - I LIKE THE WAY YOU KISS ME
Artemas - SATURN
SZA - STICK SEASON
Noah Kahan - END OF BEGINNING
Djo - LIKE THAT
Future And Metro Boomin feat. Kendrick Lamar - ESPRESSO
Sabrina Carpenter - WE CAN'T BE FRIENDS (WAIT FOR YOUR LOVE)
Ariana Grande
More Content on muzic.net.nz
Google Site Search
100% New Zealand Music
All content on this website is copyright to muzic.net.nz and other respective rights holders. Redistribution of any material presented here without permission is prohibited.
Report A Problem
