Coming on like the offspring of The Beach Boys, George Harrison and Jellyfish, The Sleepy Jackson craft ornate pop masterpieces for the emo and garage rock generation. The band are main man Luke Steele plus drummer cohort Malcolm Clarke but others help out on some tracks, including members of the commercially ever ignored You Am I.
So out of time and space is
Personality (One Was a Spider, One Was a Bird) that one has to double check the back of the cd slip to make sure it was recorded this year.
Taking in moments from
Pet Sounds and
My Sweet Lord and early Beatles record, this is both simple and complex music that rides on wonderful melodies and gorgeous vocal work.
Just like Jellyfish, The Sleepy Jackson sometimes become bogged down in their own walls of sound, the piles of strings, horns and backing singers sometimes detracting from the basic skeletal bliss of a good pop tune.
Overall this is a great little record, including
Devil In The Yard which is one of the finest songs I’ve heard so far in 2006.
Out now,
www.thesleepyjackson.com
