OK before I start let’s just shift this here elephant out of the room; that’s a terrible cover and this day and age I’m not convinced there’s an excuse unless it’s deliberately bad. Thankfully this isn’t an art review.

Sadly, and there’s no way to let anyone down that gently here, I only like the music of Jackie D a little more than the cover. I’m not a hyper-critical kind of person so I genuinely hate it when something turns up I can find so little I like in it. I mean I can’t play an instrument and these guys clearly can so they’re one up on me. They are reasonably tight and play a recognisable style of mostly upbeat bluesy stoner rock and it’s a reasonable, clear production. The downside is that’s about it.

I mean really musically this is about as generic as it gets. The vocals initially sound as though they might be fun; gruff, rough but with a bit of soul but they don’t get much to do to be honest. Not a single song gets under my skin, not even to irritate me, and there’s about three hooks on the entire album none of which stick. Sadly I can’t even fall back on the lyrics as they are unremittingly dull which may be an English as a second language thing (again, apologies, that sounds hypocritical as I can’t speak a word of Portuguese- they’re from Lisbon- but there again I am sticking to the one language I do know.)

Look I won’t prolong this; if this is really what Jackie D want to do then fair play and best of luck. They keep mentioning punk but from an objective point of view this sound is much more a tilt at a full arena of such awesome bands like Clutch, Greenleaf, Khemmis, Doomriders etc and I think this needs a total rethink. For a start they need to improve the song writing – stuff so potentially mainstream as this needs hooks and melodies to be noticed so those chops need serious work. And if there is at the moment a second language issue why not consider at least some Portuguese lyrics? Millions speak it worldwide.

Really sorry but there we go. Not a thing for me here. Not at all.

(3.5 /10 Gizmo)

https://www.facebook.com/JACKIEDMUSIC