The Motherjumpers - Self-Titled Review
Posted by Evocator Manes on 12.23.2006
Unfortunately-named band seeks label deal.
The Motherjumpers Self-Titled
2006
Horse Ass Music
5.0
I typically don't do reviews like this, but perhaps some of you will find this interesting. More on the why later...
Right now, let's say that you're an unsigned band. Let's say you play your instruments well, sound reasonably good together and start throwing some songs together. Let's say you're starting to get a following, so you decide that it's time to make the leap into the NEXT BIG THING. So, you go hit the studio to record an album to shop to labels, if you happen into that, or to sell at shows and demonstrate you one of that rare elements, a proven rock commodity. You want this disc to sound great, as good as all the big budget label shit that's polluting the rack space in FYE and Sam Goody stores out there. So you practice and practice until every note is perfect, then spend a year and a half in the studio perfecting things even more, diluting, distilling, EQ-ing, re-EQing, maybe even re-recording, overdubbing and tinkering until there are no flaws from beginning to end. Congratulations, you've done it!
Except, as in this case, you've also sadly managed to produce and master the life right out of the songs that no amount of pointless added whooping and yelling, such as on the first track, will ever fix. The production here in many ways is excellent. Every note can be heard, the mix is decent, the disc isn't as LOUD as other big label bands, but that's probably not the point, either. If there is such as thing as sounding "too perfect", this is it. Heavily relying on acoustic instruments as they do, there should also be an accompanying earthiness, a sort of "dirty/grit" feeling and there is none. Everything sounds as soulless and pristine as the waxed floors of a museum.
Some of the songs are good, but a lot of them have nothing to hold the attention of the listener. When everything is at the same level and there are no dynamics, such as we find here, it is hard to impossible to pay attention to the song. When you force the listener to actively work at hearing your music, you have failed as a band. Some of the songs also function quite a bit better than others and there could potentially be some hits here, but not as is. As is, this is mostly a snoozefest, demonstrating once again that production can't shine shit, but it can certainly dull chrome.
Speaking of chrome, the front cover features the tail end of a horse, apparently a "clever" in-joke to the Horse Ass Music moniker attached to this album, a cuteness somewhat paralleling that of the Ass Ponies band, either consciously or not. The usual unsigned band shit clutters the inside, along with a face shot of the band (probably also used for their 8X10s in mailers) on the back cover. On the inlay of the tray is a hideously stupid caricature of the band, apparently drawn in Sharpie. ALL of the artwork leaves a feeling of clumsy amateurishness.
Let's go back to being an unsigned band. If you're an unsigned band, you have to do 1 of 3 things, preferably more and the more of these you do, the better you're chances of being signed. You either have to be really different (not here – you've heard everything here before) or if not different, noticeably better than everyone else (not bad, not good, just decidedly average and somewhat uninspired) and if not those 2, then very lucky, as in either knowing someone or stumbling on someone at the right time (probably the best chance here – with the right production, these guys would fit into today's current market very nicely). If these guys don't get signed, it won't affect the music world one way or the other. They are not a band that must be heard, rather a band that might be enjoyable in the right circumstances on the right night in the right level of drunkenness, during which one might buy the CD, wake up after that night/show, throw it in and wonder why they sounded so much better live.
The reason I don't typically review unsigned bands is twofold. The first is that there are literally millions of new unsigned bands recording shitty demos all the time and it's a slippery slope before you start reviewing CD-Rs and livevolume sound clips. Fuck that. The second reason is this one. It's not fair for a band that is almost by definition not professionals to be compared against those that are. In a way, it's almost a comparison of budgets and the unsigned acts usually suffer. I've heard a lot of really good unsigned band CDs out there, but none of them has sounded as good as those who have hired an outside producer. The vast majority is junk that makes me sorry I bothered to spend any time listening to them and so I am faced with the dilemma of burning them down in written word, which I think is somewhat unfair. That is why I rarely do this and for the record, this release is somewhere in between those two groups I just mentioned. They occupy a weird middle ground of being neither good nor bad, not offensive and not compelling, just kind of there.
The 411: A decent first effort. Better luck next time.
