For those who like their indie with a spot of dying seaside town glamour and a drop of psyche, then the Jagged Baptist Club might very much be your club. Consisting of Blake Stokes (lead vocals, guitar), Morgan Ponder (drums, percussion), Josh Boyd (synths, backing vocals), CJ Ramsey (bass, backing vocals) the LA band bring some serious high energy to tape and stage.
Recorded in Joshua Tree, California with esteemed producer Alex Newport (At the Drive-In, Bloc Party, City and Colour), the album spawned the singles ‘Blow Dry Nation’, You Are A Dog’ and the rip roaring ‘Bull On A Chain’. A track that musically epitomises a bull on a chain. There’s a sense that all these bands tracks have been shaped by a live environment.
The glitzy synth-filled ‘Hot Brains’ is where the band introduces with a frantic energy that is perfectly suited to the live stage. It’s like a penny arcade on overdrive as the synths shriek and shudder. This overdose of synthetic cool bleeds into ‘Blow Dry Nation’. It’s a strutting confident track which sees the guitars come more to the forefront, giving the tracks a wider sonic landscape, leaving the synths to pick out the track’s theme on the chorus.
Second song in a the album is on a winner already. With a partial nod to The Stooges the third track and single ‘You Are A dog’ is all trademark fuzz, fizz and bang. If the first two tracks didn’t cement your love for this band then this one will. With buzzsaw precision and a chorus ready to shake many a sweaty club wall down after Ponders drumming has loosened the mortar.
The title track, ‘Physical Surveillance,’ takes things a bit trippy. The band’s sound hinges around the synths, as Boyd picks out the track’s themes and lead melodies, adding in some tasty notes and backing Stokes’s vocal lines perfectly. They just add that touch extra that seems lost in a lot of other bands’ music.
The psyche is turned up a notch on ‘Michael’s Hands’. Barrels of bass give a nervous energy to this beat up post punk cracker. One thing it does is highlight Blake Stokes’s melodic phrasing. When he is not snapping and shouting, he delivers a great performance on tracks like this one, especially on tracks like Blue Fields. The chugging backdrop is a perfect bed for the vocals and synth melodies.
The more relaxed ‘Slid Out In The Sunroom’ for a band coming from LA their sound is not a typical LA band sound. In fact, there’s a sniff of Manchester about them. You can see why Nice Swan Records took them under their wing.
The album hasn’t let up a beat so far, and with no sign of slowing, ‘Wired To The Floor’ comes along all bass and angular guitar. It’s a straight-up rock track that’s guitar-heavy and drum-powered and doesn’t know when to quit. These guys have some of the best tracks for the live arena. The energy must be insane.
Giving the album its only real moment of breathing space, ‘The In Between’ is a bit of a personal highlight, down to the superb vocal performance over the highly infectious Manchester groove that says long after the song and album have finished.
The swirling final ‘Skeletons Around my neck’ wraps things up nicely, ending the mini rave of an album with bells, whistles, and a chaotic soundwave guaranteed to leave even the hardest gig goers satisfied. This is one hell of an impressive album, and keeping that energy as high as the band has yet not sounding samey is the biggest thing in these guys’ armoury.
‘Physical Surveillance’ sounds like more of a live album, minus the crowd, such is the energy captured. It comes at you in abundance—a heap of infectious nervous energy that, if you aren’t ready for it, can be a bit intimidating. It is one for the night before rather than the morning after.
Check out the bands track You Are A dog, below:
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Purchase the album here
Read our interview with the band here
