Being an absolutely obsessive fan of Italian exploitation and horror cinema I am well aware that as film makers the country is renowned for taking certain liberties. To cite a few examples, without Romero’s ‘Night’ and ‘Dawn Of The Dead’ there would probably not have been films like ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ and bucket loads of other ‘pasta paura’. Without Jaws there would be no ‘L'ultimo Squalo,’ without ‘Alien’ no ‘Contamination’ without The Exorcist no ‘Antichristo, without Mad Max no ‘New Barbarians.’ without ‘ The Godfather’ no ‘Contraband’ without ‘Apocalypse Now’ no ‘Last Hunter’ I could go on and I could have named over 100 films here as examples of Italian movies aping mainly American genre products, but you get the point. Sometimes the Italians did it better, sometimes worse; much, much worse (cringes just thinking about ‘The New Barbarians for example) but on the whole the likes of Fulci, Lenzi, Castellari and Margheriti were all craftsmen and a product of their times, sorely missed today.
So what has this got to do with Jumping Shoes you may well ask? Well to put it simply they have well and truly also jumped into someone else’s shoes with their music. It’s a shame the singer is called Billal as if he had been born with a more popular Italian name they could have simply got rid of any pretence and called themselves Gianni’s Addiction and been done with it. Someone has well and truly been caught stealing here and although in the world of music nothing’s shocking this is the worst case of plagiarism I think I have ever heard. The songs might be original but they are so unashamed they even use key vocal parts and lyrics from JA originals, which you can have a right old laugh hearing.
This is akin to going to one of those shows at a pub and seeing the likes of High On Maiden, The Australian Doors or The Bootleg Beatles, things I personally think bands should be taken out and shot for rather than making shed loads of money. ‘Limbo Like A Bubble’ has a strange cartoon concept about it as far as artwork etc is concerned, which may be lost in the translation, the music however most certainly is not. ‘Take Me Out, Radio’ proves that they can emulate Navarro, Avery and Perkins pretty well. It is old Billal though that really gets your attention and boy does he do a damn fine impersonation of Perry Farrell when he manages to stay in tune (which is occasionally). “Go!” starts off ‘Don’t Want To Die, I’m a Man,’ yep heard that one before and this is sloppy stuff. The band are loose and the vocals on the wrong side of whiny and off key.
I have to wonder what this lot would sound like doing a Janes Addiction cover as at least they would have started off with a good song in the first place. Finding them here is no easy task and numbers like ‘Doctor’ are a ramshackle mess. They go for the mellow approach on ‘She Said Something’ and talk about sunny afternoons so this is akin to their ‘Summertime Rolls’ with a nice spot of what sounds like clarinet. It’s all ruined when the singer starts wailing off key though, in fact it’s downright painful to listen to. Just to make things even more obvious there is a line here “everybody, everybody, everybody” culled straight from the original source. The real rocker is ‘Acid Life’ which throws some Maidenisms into the guitar department, wonder if the rest of the band tried getting their singer to do a Bruce on this and expand their repertoire a bit?
It’s a pisser that I cannot find a single review for this online as for once I really was interested in seeing what others were saying, something I never do before writing a review. Shall have to wait and see if any appear. Also I normally give an album quite a few spins before reviewing but this was done on the second listen (I hasten to add it was worse than the first one too), that was all that was necessary. I certainly wont be listening to this again either, why the fuck would I want to when I already own the excellent ‘Ritual de lo Habitual?’
http://www.myspace.com/jumpingshoesband
