Customer Reviews

Jaws of Life

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I know that's a bold statement, especially since we music fans only usually consent to narrowing it down to our top 10, but, if the proverbial gun were held to my head, I'd have to pick this one. And that's the way it's been since I first bought this on cassette (released by Slash Records here in the U.S.) way back in 1984. A few years ago, I was able to obtain this version on CD via a website which specialized in importing hard-to-find music from Australia and New Zealand into the U.S., but I am happy to see it re-released here so that it may potentially infect a wider audience. A (hopefully not too boring) note on discography: The proper Jaws of Life album begins with "42 Wheels" and ends with "Little Chalkie"; the last 4 songs were originally released on the Payload EP in 1982 (and also appeared on the original A&M Records release of their eponymous debut album, along with "Talking to a Stranger"). These are also excellent tracks, but are more in the vein of funky (albeit disturbing) dance numbers and have a different feel from the rest of the songs. For maximum enjoyment, my suggestion is to play these first and then go back to the first track. This will put things in chronological order and leave "Little Chalkie" as the proper dramatic conclusion to the whole thing.

Now on to the music itself. I can only describe this as some kind of alien form of experimental punk rock - with a horn section! This has about the most sinister sound of any music I've ever heard, driven by unrelenting bass lines and tribal drum beats, and punctuated by a distorted, quasi-bluesy guitar and bizarre synthesizer intrusions. Horns would normally add some relief and lightness, but here they just add to the weirdness and are in no way similar to what you're used to hearing in, say, ska music and the like. Then, there's Mark Seymor's amazingly gritty voice! Early on, many critics suggested that he look into the potential benefits of throat lozenges (it does indeed sound like he gargles with nitric acid as part of his daily routine), but I think his raw vocal stylings fit the mood perfectly. Also, as much as I enjoy this, it's not a party record! The pictures it paints of alcoholism, failed love, revenge, life on the road, the hopelessness of life in a dead-end town, and general despair and anger are unflinching and harrowing. It seems to portray a pretty bleak view of life in small-town Australia; but, now that I think about it, perhaps not too much more bleak than life in small-town America. As an American, it's odd that I would consider this my favorite album, because I don't quite understand all of the slang used, but I somehow seem to get the gist anyway. For example, I don't exactly know what it means to be holding down a "D", but it sure doesn't sound pretty! It's not complete black-upon-black darkness as there are cracks in the clouds afforded by the brutal humor. It's not really uplifting either, unless you consider the occasional moment of clarity experienced by terminal drug addicts to be uplifting.

This thing's been with me for 20 odd (and I do mean ODD) years now, and it never fails to creep back into my CD player once a year or so; and it never fails to thrill me just like it did that first time I heard that diesel engine cranking. I will never fail to be haunted by "Hayley's Doorstep", I will never fail to empathize with the drunk in "Carry Me", I will never fail to bust a gut at the crazed sexual imagery of "Betty's Worry" or "Holding Down a D", I have felt the weight of the road in "42 Wheels" and "Red Lane", and I have had to deal with growing up in the claustrophobic, red-neck town of "The Way to Go Out" and "Little Chalkie". I will never be free of this music.

Coming of age in the 80's ususally meant that if you loved music, you most likely started out the decade by collecting cassettes. I just found this cassette--- a forgotten treasure amongst the hundreds I have had in storage. And now I'm finally buying the CD.
Hunters and Collectors was an aquired taste at the time, and still is, but this album flat-out rocks. The music here stands outside of time, and sounds as though it could have been recorded (and released) yesterday. The intensity of it far outshines anything on current radio playlists, just as it did when it was released 18 years ago. Do yourself a favor and get this gritty album.
Your hunt is over. Collect it now...

I hope the following superlatives don't sound trite. Over the years many ponder what is the best pop/rock album of all time, guided by the likes of Rolling Stone magazine and MTV, and usually names like the Beatles or The Rolling Stones are thrown about. After a relatively short life, my choice for greatest album of all time is the unknown yet brilliant 'The Jaws of Life' by Hunters and Collectors.

Never before or since it's release have I heard music with such driven intensity and originality. The basslines are thumping, the guitars really crunch and the wall of sound is delivered with a `measured' frenzy somehow mixed with delicate hooks and melody. And the lyrics of Mark Seymour are just sublime - the man captures the heart and sweat of the hardened Australian existence, urban and regional, and does so with a crusty mannish realism mixed with surreal vision and warm humour.

In essence the Australian ethos/identity is wonderfully captured in an album that oozes with the blood of working and middle class existence. A document on a society; hard, lyrical, boisterous and funny, never expressed so poignantly before, not been overshadowed since. Plus some Ray Charles and a couple of drinking songs thrown in. Play loud but careful with the bass!

Whenever I get into conversations about the best albums in my collection I always mention this one and I've yet to meet anyone who has ever even heard it. Everytime I play it for someone new they can't believe how good it is. I had this on vinyl when it was new and it was one of the first CDs I bought when I changed to digital. Out of the 1500 or so disks I have collected this one stands out by far as among the best. If you heard Hunters And Collectors' later music, when they almost broke through commercially, and dismissed them, I can't argue. Their later albums were too commercial and too contrived to be any good. They were trying to sell records and it didn't work.

Jaws of Life is the exception. It's noisy and it's raw and it's messy in all the right places. The songs are outstanding. They are 1000 times better than anything else they did. Deep bass grooves, choppy guitars, raw vocals and a horn section! There's nothing else like it. Think of The Birthday Party with a horn section and some soul. They even had the good taste to cover Ray Charles and make the song their own. It's hard to describe and it doesn't matter if I get this review right because no one will ever read it.

This album is doomed to be the best album no one will ever hear. Oh well, I heard it.

In the early eighties, Hunters and Collectors were the giants of the (then yet to be named) Australian alternative music scene. 'Jaws of Life' was their second album, and the one that was to contain most of the standards from their repotoire of the next five years. 'The Slab', with its driving baseline and chanted vocals, was for five years possibly the most-covered song of garage bands around the country.

'The Hunnas' garnered a cult following among live music-goers - in their day, in Australia, they were bigger than Nick Cave - but failed to really make an impact commercially until they breeze-ied up their syle, circa 1985.

'Jaws of Life', from 1982, had a rawness, an honesty and an edge too confronting for radio.

If the Hunters and Collectors were American, you'd all be talking about them in the same breath as R.E.M., Sonic Youth and other pioneers of D.I.Y. urban rock from the period.

There is something unique about this album - something primal, tough, and yet uniquely Australian. Sure, it's in the lyrics, which often address an idealised land of trucks, red dirt roads and macho drunkenness, but it's also in the raw, stripped, bass-driven, horn-augmented and muscular songcraft that I find this unusually familiar quality. The feeling is still in the compelling cover of Ray Charles' "I Believe", which fits perfectly into an album which becomes like a journey. The album should be listened through as a 'piece', and one listen will not be enough to discover this appeal. The sometimes almost skeletal song structures and deceptively simple arrangements become more addictive with repetition.

Although released in 1984 this debut (full-length album), poorly recorded by today's standards, stands as a personal landmark in my life. It is certainly not for everyone but for those willing to persevere and 'live' with it over a few listens, the reward will be an affection for it's open-hearted honesty and it's evocative vignettes.

Too bad these guys split up! I have been listening to them for 11 years and I just can't get tired of their music. If you are a fan, BUY IT!

After all these years this album still captivates me. I bought this on vinyl way back in the day after hearing an earlier H&C single ("Talking to a Stranger") somewhere.

The grooves of Jaws of Life immediately transported me. As a young bass player, I quickly absorbed and learned every rubbery, sinister, greasy, funky, punky bass line on this record. Very influential to me.

While H&C went on to have some big hits (especially in their homeland Down Under) and smooth off some rough edges to become more listener-friendly (and also less interesting and unique) I can't recommend this album enough. Also recommended is the self-titled collection which compiles H&C's early singles and eps and the Fireman's Curse CD. If you can gather up these three discs, you'll have all the essential recordings by this great band.

Don't get me wrong, there are some great cuts on their later albums here and there, but all of the work from their first recordings up through Jaws of Life (their masterpiece)are stellar, though they at times have a very brutal sort of edge to them. Jaws of Life threads that needle between their earlier, more challenging and raw-boned work and their later, more poppy stuff.

Though influences diverse as a band like Can to legends like Ray Charles can be detected on this album, it really is it's own thing. I've never heard anything quite like it before or since. At once catchy and groovy while also sounding alien. That's a difficult field to mine, and these gents did it oh-so-well here.

I can't add anything to the above 2 excellent reviews of this album. OK, I could say that I just recommended it to a buddy in a fantasy newsgroup and briefly described it as follows : I've only one of their albums, "Jaws of Life". I've heard they have better ones. The music is intense, not for everyone. Certainly not Greaful Dead!
Almost a Punk-Disco with aboriginal overtones.
I also promised my English boss to play it for him sometime.
My album cover is different.

I know that's a bold statement, especially since we music fans only usually consent to narrowing it down to our top 10, but, if the proverbial gun were held to my head, I'd have to pick this one. And that's the way it's been since I first bought this on cassette (released by Slash Records here in the U.S.) way back in 1984. A few years ago, I was able to obtain this version on CD via a website which specialized in importing hard-to-find music from Australia and New Zealand into the U.S., but I am happy to see it re-released here so that it may potentially infect a wider audience. A (hopefully not too boring) note on discography: The proper Jaws of Life album begins with "42 Wheels" and ends with "Little Chalkie"; the last 4 songs were originally released on the Payload EP in 1982 (and also appeared on the original A&M Records release of their eponymous debut album, along with "Talking to a Stranger"). These are also excellent tracks, but are more in the vein of funky (albeit disturbing) dance numbers and have a different feel from the rest of the songs. For maximum enjoyment, my suggestion is to play these first and then go back to the first track. This will put things in chronological order and leave "Little Chalkie" as the proper dramatic conclusion to the whole thing.

Now on to the music itself. I can only describe this as some kind of alien form of experimental punk rock - with a horn section! This has about the most sinister sound of any music I've ever heard, driven by unrelenting bass lines and tribal drum beats, and punctuated by a distorted, quasi-bluesy guitar and bizarre synthesizer intrusions. Horns would normally add some relief and lightness, but here they just add to the weirdness and are in no way similar to what you're used to hearing in, say, ska music and the like. Then, there's Mark Seymor's amazingly gritty voice! Early on, many critics suggested that he look into the potential benefits of throat lozenges (it does indeed sound like he gargles with nitric acid as part of his daily routine), but I think his raw vocal stylings fit the mood perfectly. Also, as much as I enjoy this, it's not a party record! The pictures it paints of alcoholism, failed love, revenge, life on the road, the hopelessness of life in a dead-end town, and general despair and anger are unflinching and harrowing. It seems to portray a pretty bleak view of life in small-town Australia; but, now that I think about it, perhaps not too much more bleak than life in small-town America. As an American, it's odd that I would consider this my favorite album, because I don't quite understand all of the slang used, but I somehow seem to get the gist anyway. For example, I don't exactly know what it means to be holding down a "D", but it sure doesn't sound pretty! It's not complete black-upon-black darkness as there are cracks in the clouds afforded by the brutal humor. It's not really uplifting either, unless you consider the occasional moment of clarity experienced by terminal drug addicts to be uplifting.

This thing's been with me for 20 odd (and I do mean ODD) years now, and it never fails to creep back into my CD player once a year or so; and it never fails to thrill me just like it did that first time I heard that diesel engine cranking. I will never fail to be haunted by "Hayley's Doorstep", I will never fail to empathize with the drunk in "Carry Me", I will never fail to bust a gut at the crazed sexual imagery of "Betty's Worry" or "Holding Down a D", I have felt the weight of the road in "42 Wheels" and "Red Lane", and I have had to deal with growing up in the claustrophobic, red-neck town of "The Way to Go Out" and "Little Chalkie". I will never be free of this music.