Album Review

Joe Gideon And The Shark – Harum Scarum

• 17th Mar 2009

When Nick Cave popped into his local newsagent recently for his daily paper he ran into Jon Spencer and Iggy Pop. Realising they had never melded their eclectic souls and styles they roundly booked themselves into their local musical cathedral and so Joe Gideon & the shark were born.

The brother and sister duo are chomping at the bit with their sleazy blues sound and a lower than a snakes belly vocal, its a piece of golden genius this 9 track album. It all kicks off with ‘Harum Scarum’ and sets an invocative template for the rest of the songs. Bucking the trend that lyrics have to rhyme it’s an exhausting listen as the rambling is so sinister that I got that cold shiver down my spine. ‘DOL’ is a cracking, crunchy number with a rumbling bassline, it’s simply vile, whilst spitting vitriol and blackness.

‘Kathy Ray’ is all about the rise and rise of a pseudonym named singer who ended singing with the late great Ray Charles (or did she?) – a bizarre anecdotal ditty but an aesthetic piece of work all the same.

Ok, you might think girl/ boy duo a la Kills or White Stripes but what they lack is the seedy beauty and the hooks that JG has to offer. The disparate lyrics are at times caustic and bitter but they simply draw you in along with the rollercoaster bullet like drive of the music. ‘Johan was a painter and arsonist’ is at times demonic whilst ‘hide and seek’ is more a spoken word with a ubiquitous piano riff that really nags away in your cranium. Then the guitar threatens to break loose but just as its about to get away they drag it back in, moments later its laid its nasty hook all over it. A superb album, brimming with charm and enthusiasm and an early candidate for best of 2009. Simply bloody lovely!!