jackie trash - wow so sad
(Self-Released 2013)
"Its appeal lies in its extemporaneous aura"
Using all-lowercase song titles, found tape sounds and blown out home-recorded vibes, Arizona's jackie trash delivers everything I look for in a tumblr-era emo band and seems to do so effortlessly. The trio's debut, wow so sad, meshes the more rock-minded approach to lo-fi that appears on Modest Mouse's Sad Sappy Sucker with A Grave With No Name's simple melancholy, resulting in an impressive first effort that could rival Julia Brown in variety and organic emotion. It's the kind of release that you come back to often, but aren't sure why. Perhaps its appeal lies in its seemingly extemporaneous aura. Each song on wow so sad sounds like it was patched together on the fly, and small hiccups and muddled bits of sound give the tracks some nice touches of character.
The singer for jackie trash, (his name is Linus is think?), sounds like Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, and it really shows on the two cuts I listen to the most on wow so sad, "Sleepy Cat" and "Trampoline". The first is the most accessible of the two, and it resembles Built to Spill in its shouted chorus and wobbly keyboard. Its sound on the surface is charmingly whimsical, veiling the surprisingly large amount of force that lies beneath the band's twee stylings. "Trampoline" is a more somber track, giving the album a bit of gravitas. It carries with it a surprisingly catchy piano riff that lasts the first few verses. Though a bit all over the place, wow so sad is an album worth downloading and at only about five minutes long, it has a lot of replay value.
