By Monk
It has taken East Anglian alt-rock trio Jukebox Monkey six long and traumatic years to follow up the momentum created by their decisively emphatic debut album, but its final release is one which emphasizes the band’s determination to continue creating music, albeit in a darker, more reflective manner, as emphasized by this release’s singularly declarative and reflective title.
‘Smiles Becoming Teeth’ was gestated and birthed against the backdrop of both global (in terms of the Covid pandemic) and personal crises for the band members themselves. But rather than being a knee-jerk, off-the-cuff countermand to those conditions, the result is a considered, thoughtful and elegantly eloquent album. One which demands not only to be listened to, but examined and explored in depth, with an open-minded approach and an empathetic ear.
Mixing elements of, primarily, doom and stoner, a la the approach adopted by genre proponents such as Clutch and Mastodon, with those of prog (again, very much in the vein of Mastodon or Gojira) and NOLA-esque heavy swamp blues with generous splashes of alt-rock/post-grunge symbiotics, ‘Smiles…’ is the thought-provoking album which it sets out to be. Massive melodies beautifully counterpart the density of the mains riffs and rhythms, while almost psychedelic sidebars elegantly counterpoint same, while the dual vocals extrapolate the lyrical themes in a superbly laconic way which allows the messages to speak for themselves, no element overpowering the other but rather intertwining in a stunningly crafted manner.
It is a deeply personal album for its creators, but simultaneously one which will appeal on a similar level to the listener, addressing as it does the themes of familial disintegration and relationships, as well as the transitory nature of both these thematics and of life itself. The result is a vibrant and elegantly realized album. One which, as I mentioned above, deserves – no, NEEDS – to be explored and examined, and above all added your collection.
- ‘Smiles Becoming Teeth‘ is out now.
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