MUSIC REVIEWS
The Joggers - With a Cape and a Cane
David Allun Jones
Indie rock troupe The Joggers may hail from Portland, Oregon but their post-punk style of music pays more homage to bands that emerged from the East Coast and UK. On the surface, the band comes across as another unruly New York act, employing a noisy mish mash of harmonies, flat vocals, screeching guitars and thunderous off-beat drums as a sign of mainstream rebelliousness. The fact that the band seems so intent on NOT catering to a listener’s sense of musical balance would be enough of a reason to quickly write them off, but The Joggers have got a strong hold on their erratic sound and have found a way to make the seemingly disarray of elements come together to create a strange kind of raw, aural quality.
The band’s second album, With A Cape and A Cane, takes impressive risks in search of an alternate way to make music. On initial listen, everything sounds sporadic and unfocused, as if a group of kids haphazardly decided to come together and start a band and this was their beginners’ results of “rawking” out. A closer listen, though, and you slowly begin to see that The Joggers’ actually do know what they’re doing, an ear-opening realization.
The opening salvo of “Ziggurat Traffic” and “We’ve Been Talked Down” quickly get you prepared for the band’s bizarre way of thinking, whether you’re ready or not. The former’s odd Middle Eastern-meets-drum n’ bass fusion and latter’s inverted funk riffs are such a shocking bombardment that the songs rush by before you’re able to get a real grasp of them. It’s only during the final moments of the album’s third track “Wicked Light Sleeper” that things really fall in place. It’s the first moment when faux-Brit frontman Benjamin Whitesides sounds like he’s really singing, and the track ends on a memorable musical note with a sparkling guitar solo, showcasing the group’s jazz groundings. Those bit moments pop up even more so over the course of the rest of the album: drunken vocal harmonies that seem intended as a joke despite the fact that they really work and neat little instrumental sections in which all the noise and distortion cease to show off the group’s winning musical ability.
These brief moments of song craft brilliance are teasing, though. It leaves you feeling like the band would be so much better if they elongated those bits and pieces and committed entire songs to them. But at the same time, there’s a charm in their insistence of not following the straight and narrow. It gives them a sense of character and room to grow over the course of a career. And when they do accomplish a solid track, in this case the light reggae ballad “Night of The Horsepills”, it’s a blistering experience that compels you to sit through the rest of the comparably so-so material, awaiting the band’s next moment of inspiring tranquility.
An acquired taste, The Joggers will never achieve much popularity beyond the expected indie faithful if they continue to work the same angle. But something tells me that being complacent and not evolving is something you won’t have to worry about from them. The best is yet to come from The Joggers and it’s only a matter of time before they bring the music world to its knees.
