Album Review

Andrew Jackson Jihad – Christmas Island

• 5th May 2014

Andrew Jackson Jihad are a folk/ punk band from band from Phoenix, Arizona who specialise in lyrical wordplay that is immensely clever and often displays a lovely sense of the absurd. Christmas Island, the band’s fifth studio release, combines expansive lyrical content, where at times it is difficult to work out where serious starts and ends, with high energy acoustic folk music.

There appear to be several themes mixed into the album’s twelve tracks, with a fair amount of apocalyptic, end times imagery sitting side by side with tales of grief and loss, mainly around the death of vocalist Sean Bonnette’s grandfather. Christmas Island can be a difficult album to figure out in places: is it real or surreal? It’s not all doom and end of days though. A track called Armageddon didn’t make the album and the initial title of The Bible 2 was dropped as a Google search showed that it had already been used for a couple of albums and a comic book.

Opening track Temple Grandin is named for an American professor and autism activist before the apocalyptic Children Of God, which has a both lovely bass line and an upbeat piano melody, introduces vampires and singing cannibals to the mix. Do Re And Me references a 1970s San Diego organisation, the Heaven’s Gate Cult, who committed mass suicide, apparently in order to reach what they believed was an alien space craft following the Hale-Bopp comet. Coffin Dance then slows the pace as a cello backs delicate vocals in a moving lament. This is an album with a strong opening section.

The lyrics then become stranger as Getting Naked, Playing With Guns mentions everyone from Microsoft to McDonalds. There’s also a gerbil in the microwave and an annoying neighbour kid to be blown up. Not sure what it all symbolises, but it is a catchy song. Best Friend reminisces softly while Deathlessness is strong and uptempo. And the closing Angel Of Death uses an organ to back the vocals in a widely ranging track that ends the album in some style.

There are also a couple of more straightforward songs. I Wanna Rock Out In My Dreams has a great plaintive feel as it explores teenage musical fantasies that persist into later life, while Linda Ronstadt starts with a breakdown in a museum and tells of the redemptive powers of music. A true story apparently.

Christmas Island is a good album, although it does take a fair few listens to begin to get a handle on its imagery and lyrical play. Andrew Jackson Jihad are perhaps something of an acquired taste but the depth to their music makes it worth taking the time to get to know an inventive and very different band.

Venue: Christmas Island
Support Band: SideOneDummy Records