Jarema - Everyone At Home
'Everyone At Home' is a self released DVD by four-piece Jarema. The band is made up of Andre Jarema (vocals, guitar), Owen Martin (drums), Alex Gettinby (guitar) and Cristiano Tortoioli (bass). The DVD promises to offer an insight into the band and shows exclusive footage of gigs in their creative, inspirational and historical rehearsal space. Other extras on the DVD include band sessions, individual tracks and an interview with Andre Jarema.
The band started working on the DVD way back in March 2010 and includes four previously unreleased tracks: 'I Wanted To Be Alone', 'Birth Sex Death', 'Your Time Has Come' and 'The Search Is God' as well as a lot of songs from 'There Was A Night Before There Was A Day'.
Shot in black and white (presumably to set some sort of mood), the DVD tends to project a depression. Not just the songs, but the tempo and lack of energy seems to be emphasized by the apparent gloom that the lack of colour brings. From the disappointing opener 'Your Mum', Jarema's voice appears slightly flat and out of tune. The song is tinny and jarring and the end doesn't come too soon.
The mood very rarely changes throughout the songs. There's the slower/mixed tempo of 'Cross-Eyed' which has some annoying volume imbalances between voice and instruments and some understated guitar; the theme of which is continued via 'The Upper Hand On The Fire' and the more acoustic and folky 'One Inside The Other'. There are flashes of Morrisey on 'Downstairs' and more agonized vocals on 'Half A Prisoner'. It's not until you get to 'Sleazy Song' that things start to improve. Here, the sound has more of a rock tinge and is the heaviest song on the album. The vocals are bearable and the overall feel isn't as depressing as the rest on the DVD. Their second attempt and turning up the volume isn't as successful; the mediocre 'He Tried' has undertones of 'London's Calling' in the main riff and the arrangement just simply falls short.
I admire this band for having the balls to self release material. Not many out there would be willing to release a CD, let alone shoot and release a whole DVD. If by shooting in black and white they intended to produce a depressing mood, well that worked too well. I think that musically, the band should look to mix it up a little; experiment with different tempos and most of all make sure that the instruments volumes are balanced and the vocals are in tune before committing to release.