Science fiction the muse for many a band and if you were wondering a Jonbar Hinge is from the realm of time travel and a historical divergence point that can alter the course of history. It is also the name of a rock band from Switzerland, land of Geiger and the Maison d’Ailleurs a museum and research centre looking into all sorts of things fantastical and utopian. Leaving fantasy aside though it’s time to look at this 5 track debut from the band.
The short provided details promise walls of sound, stoner like music and progressive and post rock touches. At first on listening to opener ‘Dear’ I set myself up for a voyage into the bland as clean vocals and bouncy commercial melody suggested that this would be a perfect act to open for the most boring rock band in the world, The Foo Fighters when they visited town. Yep it’s got the stadium rock feel and an overt tried and tested commercialised sound that really doesn’t warm me to it in the slightest. There’s a grungy touch about it and some strong thick riffing from the guitar department but nothing that has not been heard a million times before. I’m not really finding the stoner rock or 70’s spirit hinted at here but at least it’s preferable to listening to Muse and has some balls about it. Luckily some mighty roars from singer Matthieu go part way to lifting it out of the doldrums. ‘You’ll Be A Man’ improves things somewhat with a quirky jagged melody that is more reminiscent of the far more palatable likes of Therapy? I guess this is doing what it does fairly enough and rocks out for those that listen to middle ground music that does not particularly challenge or look at upsetting the applecart. Becoming more rugged and jarring riff and vocal wise you can even go as far as head-banging along to it if so inclined. There’s a bit of a post-hardcore Fugazi, Unsane feel about the choppy instrumentation on ‘The Noise In My Head’ and after listening to this several times I am certainly warming to things. The distempered vocal roars have lifted it from stereotypical to slightly dangerous and perhaps the Foo Fighters comment is a bit unwarranted now as Jonbar Hinge would no doubt unsettle their audience a bit too much.
As they bounce into ‘The Front’ essentially another bog standard rock song though, I am struck by a band that want to be heavy but dare not go the full way and are afraid of not fitting in properly with the majority that might like them more if exposed to radio airplay and go on to buy their records. That is my problem here and to be fair we are probably not the right site to have been sent to dissect it in the first place. For me they need to drop the emotive touches from boring closer ‘Drive’ but for any real commercial success they want to embrace them and not quite rock out so violently.
(5.5/10 Pete Woods)
Leave a Reply