The Superjesus- Jet Age

The Superjesus are an Australian band of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and Jet Age is their second album, released in 2000.

As for their genre, I challenged myself to avoid the cop-out description of "chick rock" (why is it that a female singer defines the genre of a rock band??). It turns out that being more specific than "rock" is quite tricky. Wikipedia says "post-grunge", which really could mean anything. Pandora provides a lot more detail: "electric rock instrumentation, punk influences, minor key tonality, a vocal-centric aesthetic and electric rhythm guitars", which is a technically correct if questionably useful description!

Enough pigeon-holing, onto the album. For their more stadium-rock tracks, The Superjesus feature big guitar riffs, interesting drum patterns, and creamy vocals. Over to You, Gravity, Enough to Know and Secret Agent Man are examples of this. When in rock-ballad mode (eg Second Sun and Fall to the Rescue) the gentle and flowing verses are a highlight.

The recording quality is pretty generic late 90s rock. The cymbals can be harsh at times, on the plus side the female vocals have nice subtle chorusing, which isn't over the top.

Kudos to the drummer for the unusual drum patterns throughout the album, I really enjoy the unusual style, especially on Over to You, Enough to Know and the way Everything Turns has swapped the rock styles typically for the verses and chorus. Another unique aspect is the use of minor keys, which works especially well as gentle verses of Secret Agent Man to contrast the big chorus.

Safer Emergency sits halfway between their "power" and "ballad" styles, and manages to walk the line very well. Checking In moves to a more electronic sound, ala Pulp, somehow reminding me of the film Mission Impossible. So Lonely is a solid rock effort, albeit a bit rough at times. The big guitar riff in Holy Water is fantastic, making it one of the standout songs on the album for me.

As for my challenge to not categorise them based on "rock band with female singer"... well I was trying to think of similar bands with which to compare them. Unfortunately the only ones that come to mind are Garbage and Magic Dirt. D'oh!

Favourite songs

Over to You, Gravity, Enough to Know, Secret Agent Man, Second Sun, Everything Turns, Safer Emergency, Holy Water, So Lonely

Worthwhile?

Yes. In fact, it's a hidden treasure.