Arkells - Jackson Square

Reviewed by Garrett

4 out of 5 Faces (Ratings)

Release Date: December 16, 2008

Label: Dine Alone Music

To all of you out there who want more Gaslight Anthem, I say go buy the Arkells record.  To all of you out there who wish that the Hold Steady's latest was just a bit better, I say go buy the Arkells record.  Now, I say this despite the fact that Arkells is a bunch of Canadians out of Hamilton, Ontario, since it is well known that PYIIF carries a deep-seated bias against all things Canadian (for example, that tramp Celine Dion).  I did ding them half a Face for it, but it shouldn't stop you from getting the record because, really, the Arkells boys can't help that they're from America Jr.  

Also, who the hell releases a record in mid-December?  Geez, guys, way to fly under the radar.  You didn't make anybody's 2008 best-of list because all the lists were done by December 16th (PYIIF's own fearless editor put out the "last call" a week before then), and you won't make anybody's 2009 best-of list because your record technically came out in 2008.  This is the musical equivalent of Dan Akroyd letting John Candy go only after the anti-Canadian graffiti has been translated into French.  (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109370/)

Still, Arkells' Canadianity hasn't stopped the band from making a kickass rock-n-roll record the way it stopped Bryan Adams and Gordon Lightfoot.  "Jackson Square" has all the earmarks of a classic rockfest: driving guitar riffs, screamed vocals, lots (I mean LOTS) of cymbal crashes.  You can almost hear the Arkells boys sweating as you make your way through the album.  Standout tracks include "Oh, the Boss is Coming!", "Pullin' Punches", "No Champagne Socialist" and "Tragic Flaw."  The album starts big ("Deadlines") and ends bigger ("John Lennon" and "Blueprint").  It's unfortunate, but "I'm Not the Sun" at track no. 9 sort of puts a damper on the whole thing, but if you're paying attention, you can just advance past that track and get on with the R-O-C-K-I-N'!  I swear you'll never be able to get the chorus to "John Lennon" out of your head.  "Heart of the City" makes me want to shotgun a Molson.

The only issue I have with the record is the lyrics.  The whole album has a blue collar, working man feel to the lyrics.  This is obvious just from the song titles: see "Oh, the Boss is Coming!" and "Deadlines" for starters.  This is generally fine.  A bit too Springsteen perhaps (Gaslight gave me enough Springsteen for now, thanks), but a good enough theme compared to some others (for example, whatever garbage Franz Ferdinand has on the radio right now that I'm sure is about the Eurotrash club scene in Dusseldorf).  Being that these guys are Canadian, there's a wonderfully ironic line about "f*cking Europeans who vacation through September" in the opening track, but overall I'm a bit disappointed with the lyrics.  They're too straightforward.  Let's be clear about this: straightforward, well executed guitar riffs are generally good things; straightforward, A-B-A-B rhyme schemes are generally not.  Still, if you  roll down your window and turn up the music, you don't have to try to make sense of the words.  You can just rock out.

And in case you're keeping score, I'm indulging the Canadianity and counting this record as a 2009 release.