'The Sun's Comin' Up I See Comets Collide...'

Manchester's patron saints of frenzied gunky, boneshaking bonkersbilly Jackie O have been trawling their trashcans around, tarring and feathering conceptions of blues-based garage rawk skronk for a few years now and have always garnered comparisons to Jon Spencer's Blues Explosion. Perhaps naturally. Perhaps lazily. For you will have to make up your own mind. I never really saw that, tho' it is there. But that's kinda simplistic for something that is perhaps as adventurous as Mr Spencer but not as ploddy, thank god, but also has the experimental vigour of Royal Trux, Gaye Bykers On Acid and maybe even metal-grunge also-rans Cay. The main surprise to me, which nearly made me fall out of bed, is the warped psychedelia of 'Love' era Cult sharing barroom brawling space with old Nick Cave. Check the 'Big Neon Glitter' meets Psychedelic Furs 'Love My Way' stomp on 'I Found Out' (which one is of the opinion should be a single, as it's a perfect Devastation Disco death-rattle blaster) and Ian Astbury drunk on the holy gasoline of opener 'Sister Love', inviting all into the labyrinth while surfing on sheet-metal slices of Mary Chain guitar manglings like some gonzoid trapeze artist from old Hunter's final flashback. In fact the vocals sound like singer Jackson's been gargling napalm in readiness for his mission to lay waste to great swathes of your little music world. Armed to the teeth he is too. There's clattering Cadillac crushing guitars from Federation X's wire-cutting masterpiece 'American Folk Horror' (border-town 'King Contrary Man' blues 'Rio Grande' - 'They wouldn't take my heart and soul / They have to take my skin and bones' sang with the fervid fear of a guy who just lost at bridge with Beelzebub and 'Hellzapoppin!' - a fantastic frug of freeform hellboogie which is everything The Birthday Party should've been), the furious pre-grunge Panzer assault of Silverfish ('Plastic Black Jesus') and demented gothbilly creeper melting infernos similar to those that served 80's Matchbox so well for a few minutes a couple of years back also feature (the Alamo blasting rumble of 'Bolivia'), creating a dark sonic vista of stormy pre and post apocalypse days that wraps you up and enfolds you in its own vortex. Powered along on some 24V Lori Barbero battering ram Junkyard drumming and billowing black-out bass frequencies the stench of urban decay and dystopia should be set against a backdrop of burning oil fields...newsreels of carnage and unsettling experiments flitter across your brainvision. 'Stealth Kitten' and 'Silver Low Rider' (slowed down here from the hidden track at the end's faster, I presume earlier, version, into a psycho-spaghetti western dust cloud) sounding like Jackson sho' is in fear o' The Lord AND those old familiar hellhounds on his tail. It's not all noise and nightmares tho. The title track is a pretty, epic and stately magnificent beauty, sliding over to sit beside you at the bar, all seductive eyes and lighting cigarettes...musta slipped something in your drink...splinters of sweet music filter in and out which you try and mentally chase but are all too slender to grasp...a man in black onstage preachin' some voodoo incantations...features shifting like the physical presence of the shifting, phantasmagoric music. 'Burnt Tyre Rubber And Sun' slaps you back round the face into the early morning Tequila bloodstream morning, starting like get Ram Jam Bands 'Black Betty' before hitting the horn and getting down and dirty Danko Jones style. Closer 'Candy' is a desolate, love note from a flaming cauldron in a cold, dank Detroit cellar, as mini-epic in Television or Spacemen 3's shoes, having sand-blasted staccato guitar lines like the Spacemen's 'That's Just Fine'.
The flames building to crescendo before the embers die and glow to a close as the ash floats off into the red sunset.And a big success of a sunset it is too. Came right outta the sun and took me by surprise.

Fuckin' Drivin' Or What...eh?
7/7

Now, Skinny Dog just need to sign Kid Voodoo.
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-Stu Gibson