Review by Stephen O’Brien
Jerome’s Law-‘Knives at Concrete’ is the new EP released from Jerome’s Law. The EP consists of four songs and sports a great alternative sound.
The first song, “Adding and Subtracting“, starts with a beautifully crafted bass guitar paired with a simplistic drum beat, the drummer doing what is necessary for the song and not showing his tricks. As the verse transitions into the chorus, energy seems to build and a strong chorus appears which reminds me of Kildare giants, Planet Parade. The guitar work pitching somewhere close to John Frusciantes work on By the Way, Adding and Subtracting creates great momentum towards the end of the song and ends fashionably, leaving the desire to click the repeat button.
The second song, “Throwing Stones“, starts very differently to its previous track. The first half seemsto be building up to a great height with gospel-like backing vocals and droning octaves on the strings. My assumptions are accurate as the song bursts into something heard on early Pink Floyd albums such as “Saucerful of Secrets” with great up-tempo percussion and the distinct droning octaves.
“Safe” is the third song on the ‘Knives in Concrete’, this song starts with a Pencil full of lead feeling but rapidly changes into a song Oasis would be proud to call their own. The song contains some chords that give the song a Syd Barrett feeling of insanity, but all in all, who doesn’t like over indulging on strange chord progressions to throw a spanner in the works?
“Just Don’t Ask” is the finale on this piece of art. It starts with an organ which paints a sea of candlesand warmth around the vocal melodies which match the likes of David Gray. The rest of the band isintroduced to create a calm and relaxing blur of aesthetic ambient music. The song is then broughtback to earth as the vocals are re-introduced giving the song structure once again.
Overall, Jerome’s Law have done justice to modern music with this piece.
The songs on the EP maybe to contrasting to be on the same record but overall, the song writing is unique. I would hope that these songs are given justice in a live set up and look forward to seeing more material.