The new album - The Light and Shade

It’s the first entire album i’ve listened to from start to finish for quite a while, which is already quite an achievement in an age of iTunes single song downloads! I do come into this with a bit of bias as a huge Jaywalker fan, i’ve gone to one of their shows (very disappointed I didn’t get a chance to see them on their current tour for this album) and interviewed Jase, the lead singer, during my year as an editor for Vertigo. He’s a great guy, really genuine, humble, passionate about music and a lot of fun to talk to.

With high hopes and expectations for the album, it definitely started out at a disadvantage though. The first play through left me a little unsure of whether it truely got even close to my crazy expectations.

I was slightly caught off guard at the change they’d made to ‘Hold On’ which had become ‘Faces of February’. It’s a song they’d played live at a gig (the song was on YouTube) in rememberance of the Victorian bushfires but was adjusted to have a new chorus. After about a day though, I had the new version stuck in my head and definitely saw the improvement, both to the song as a whole and the true meaning behind it.

In fact, not only was ‘Faces of February’ stuck in my head but other songs also would come and go on playback in my head, ‘Little Universe’, ‘Famous to Me’, ‘Green Light’, ‘Finest Hour’… My love of the album grew quite quickly as I realised there were actually only two songs I wasn’t a big fan of (the two final songs of the album).That doesn’t happen often for an album, especially for me! Usually for albums I get one or two songs that stand out and get stuck in my head and then have to wait for a new album to come out to find other stand out songs from the artist. I’m kind of picky that way!

‘The Light and Shade’ brings a nice mix of songs about inspiration, perseverance, celebration, personal growth and looking to the future. It has a great variety of sounds and styles – just as I started to think it was all sounding a little similar, ‘Famous to Me’ started with a guitar sound that reminds me a little of Santana! As a guy living way too much of his life on public transport seeing the same people day after day, I totally related to the song too.

‘Little Universe’ was an unexpected favourite for me. It’s got an energy and sound which took me by surprise. Love the song and think it would sound awesome live!

‘Lost in London’, ‘Hard Times’ and ‘Sure Feels Good Tonight’ were three songs I’d heard many times before the album came out. ‘Sure Feels Good Tonight’ was my favourite Jaywalker song so far. As most albums go, I was expecting these to be the best songs on the album, but the new songs definitely hold their own and were brilliant in their own right! It’s become hard to choose a favourite now.

Overall, I’d give the album about an 9/10, it’s definitely a great album which i’ll be listening to for quite a while. If you haven’t heard Jaywalker’s music, definitely check them out (their myspace is here, their official site is here). They’re currently part of the “Breaking New Artists” promotion by Sanity, HMV and Virgin Music stores, so hopefully I’ll get to hear their music on the radio soon!