Hit the Jackpot
Soul Money Gang Vibe
10 Track, LP (2008, Chapter Music)
Related: Hit The Jackpot.
There is a lovely nostalgic warmth to Hit the Jackpot that comes from their references to all manner of late ’80s and early ’90s underground rock. The jangle, scraw and hum of Pavement, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and Bikini Kill find their way into the fabric of Soul Money Gang Vibe, whether through the talky-singing, the slippages in tune, the burn of lo-fi distortion or the meandering drumming. All it takes is the melody played by the rhythm guitar in first track ‘King of the Pool’ and its triumphant, male/female vocal climax, “That’s when he splashed me/ King of the pool”, and suddenly I’m contriving rips in my jeans with a sharpener blade at recess.
Hit the Jackpot expressly claim that they’re tapping into the enthusiasm-beats-skill ethos that Bikini Kill embodied, but even if they didn’t admit it you could tell right away; the hallmarks of such music are ever-present. Songs rarely possess more than two movements of music or three lines of lyric, atonality is sometimes considered a virtue, the mix is pretty muddy, and when in doubt the band builds to a distorted catharsis. The adoption of such an ethos can prompt skepticism in a listener, because just as virtuosos can overwhelm their songs with vacuous displays of their skill, bands who de-emphasise skill can just as easily wallow in their own crapulence. Hit the Jackpot dip into this failing sometimes, when their aesthetic yields a dud number (not a fan of the song about going to the shops on a bus) but most of the time they avoid it, and so they triumph. Soul Money Gang Vibe is a joyfully reckless album.
by Matt Giles
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