Jets To Brazil

Perfecting Loneliness

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Editor's Review:

Being too young and too unmotivated to be overly familiar with Jets To Brazil frontman Blake Schwartzenbach’s former band - the indie punk / pre-emo institution known as Jawbreaker - I was able to approach Perfecting Loneliness from an unbiased indie neophyte’s point of view. Which means, as opposed to the majority of everybody, I actually liked it.
Opening with “The Frequency,” a primer if there ever was one for concise pop-rock songwriting, Perfecting Loneliness maintains a surprisingly alternative pop feel throughout. If anything, as the album progresses, the songs grow increasingly accessible; even the more up-tempo tracks (“William Tell Override,” “Perfecting Loneliness,”) sound more like Ned’s Atomic Dustbin than the overwhelming hordes of indie rock and new school emo bands clogging the musical arteries these days. But Schartzenbach’s true songwriting prowess is exhibited most readily in the numerous placid, stripped-down cuts on Perfecting Loneliness. The piano driven “Cat Heaven,” and the depressing marathon of “Rocket Boy,” are both rainy day music at its best; sappy vocals - “The birds came and carried us / to the sky and married us on a bed of stars” - and predictably pleasant chord changes. On the melodically straightforward “Wish List,” Schwartzenbach sings “Some people say I’m corny or I’m morbid / I always thought I was touching, I was tragic / One man’s magic is another man’s plastic,” a fitting description of Perfecting Loneliness and, in essence, Jets To Brazil as a whole; although useless plastic to those passing their days listening to their Jawbreaker vinyl, Perfecting Loneliness is magic to those fortunate few unafraid of good old-fashioned pop music.
– Daniel Taylor
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