Customer Reviews

Rebel Hiss

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The 4 track Single "Rebel Hiss" is the debut of Jubilee, a new Los Angeles based band featuring Aaron North formerly with NIN/Icarus Line and Mike Shuman on bass in the current QOTSA line-up, as well as members of excellent punk/rock'n'roll outfit Wires on Fire. Everyone in here is more or less deeply rooted in a punk background, apparent in their independant attitude & work ethics and their powerful live performances -
musically however Jubilee is way more melodic & complex and should be accessible to a broader audience.

"Rebel Hiss" is a fiery, guitar driven hymn with pounding mid tempo drumming, it's dangerously catchy with an incredible singalong potential. Fiercely energetic and hard rocking - since the early days of the Edge, guitars have seldom roared as rebelliously...
"Fuzz are down" shows a more experimental, aggressive side of Jubilee. Throbbing drums, a heavy bassline, distorted grungy guitars, raw and raspy vocals (somewhat reminiscent of Cobain's) - it's a breakneck ride on an adrenaline high through the night in dingy sidestreets of a sinister metropole. Rhythmically, with its despaired raging intensity and thanks to its numerous breakdowns it's perhaps mostly reminiscent of At the drive-in.
"Fool on the pill" is a calm, breezy song. The relaxed yet hypnotic rhythm is carried purely by acoustic guitar and broom (yep, broom) and with its laidback surfy lead guitar (a la Pixies' Joey Santiago, Bossanova era) it conjures a sunny, southern atmosphere. Deceivingly so, seeing as to how the lyrics, underlined with the sweetest harmonic background vocals, tell a tale of social isolation, apathy and decline.

"L.A." is a cover version of Neil Young's song about the looming destruction of his own and Jubilee's hometown through catastrophic forces of nature. In comparison to Young's original Jubilee's version is way energetic, punchy, rhythmically and melodically more stringent and brings out the painful ambivalence (or cynicism ?) of this love/hate relationship towards the "city in the smog" - Neil'd be proud, I bet.

With a talent for brillant songwriting, a dedication to layered, complex and vivid sound, a heart for balls out rock and the head-on energy of punk Jubilee have a real winner here, very diverse from song to song but entirely unique in their own style, unlike anything else out there really. No (PR) gimmicks, no surfing of trends and fashions, no cozy hiding in bizarre niches of weird subgenres - just a bunch of guys and their love for music - very powerful stuff INDEED. Better give it a try, otherwise you're really gonna miss out, and don't say you haven't been warned !