Great ska!
Originally from Boston and now chilling out permanently in Holland, Jaya The Cat bring together the sounds of Reggae, Ska with mixes of Punk and Street Smarts. This is the follow up to the band's 2007 album, More Late Night Transmissions With... and they don't wander too far from the musical path already laid down. The bottom line with the band is that what they do, they do very well albeit in a slightly niche market that comes in and out of fashion with some regularity.
Within the mix are a handful of different musical styles. Firstly you have the laid back and acoustic Reggae style of Bos En Lommer (which is a neighbourhood of Amsterdam), comprising of the gruff vocals of Geoff Lagdec (that sound like Dicky Barrett of Mighty Mighty Bosstones) over an acoustic guitar in a pure simplistic charm. This Could Go Horribly Wrong is a slow Ska number, and One Way Ticket has a Trip-Hop and slightly Ambient feel, but it is the catchiness of Thank You with the half sung and half rapped vocals that is the pick of the laid back crew of songs.
We then have the more Rancid/Tim Armstrong-esque songs of Unconditional Love that sounds like The Aggrolites are playing in the background, and the more accessible (and first single) Here Come The Drums which has the ability of Ska, but a hard Punk edge with a catchy sing-a-long chorus. Thessaloniki really could be Rancid or Transplants with it's straight up Street Punk, as could Fake Carreras that shows that even with keyboard chords you can have a great Punk song! The ability to mix these sounds up and still come up with some good tunes is an underrated quality that this band possess, and again in the Smash Mouth sounding song Peace & Love whereby we hear the lyrics: "Turn on the TV it's the same old thing // A bunch of Shit that don't mean much to me // Check the headlines, man it's just a drag // War and Destruction means the worlds gone bad // Down at the pub, it's just peace & Love // All that stupid shit don't mean a thing // And you wonder why I drink?" Great stuff!
Elsewhere Jaya The Cat have embraced the type of their music that is currently popular: Punk/Ska with a Street Flava (like The King Blues and Sonic Boom Six), opening track Rebel Sound introduces us to this, and songs Late Night Sonic Insurrection and Two Ships Passing add a little more Dancehall to the mix with trumpets and head-nodding beats. Later on we have a chilled laid-back track with Street lyrics before we have one of the best tracks on the album, Put A Boombox On My Grave which features The King Blues frontman Jonny 'Itch' Fox and bridges perfectly what his band had brought to us and the more traditional Reggae/Ska of Jaya. In fact the Record Label even go as far as suggesting that this may well be the album that The King Blues should have written and recorded - personally I don't subscribe to this as whilst many fans of The King Blues wish that their last two albums had more Reggae/Ska on them, I think that the Street smart Ska/Rap gave them something that made them unique. Jaya The Cat would be unwise to follow this path, and therefore have proved that with this album they have grown, but not tampered with the formula too much. Why would they? I loved their previous album and whilst I cannot decide whether or not this album is better, there are (if nothing else) half a dozen very good songs and the others still remain strong.
Jaya The Cat are a melting pot of Rancid, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Smash Mouth and The Aggrolites, and that isn't to say that they are trying to be some Pop-Idol copycat, but that they appreciate the elements of said bands and incorporate them into something original.