Jet by Day: Cascadia

What the hell is “thundercore”? Well, apparently it’s what the PR folks like to label Jet by Day‘s music. And I say that whenever you have to come up with a label that sounds like it came straight from This Is Spinal Tap, you’re already asking for trouble. Yet this Athens, Georgia band has received a number of accolades for its thundercore-iffic sound.

That patented thundercore mentality humbles the band as well. But let Jet by Day speak for itself: “At shows we jump into the crowd, get on tables and bars, swing from ceilings, jump off PA speakers, and exhaust ourselves every night because it’s the most fun and rewarding feeling on earth. Jet by Day is a band because the songs cannot sleep. We rock 100%, even when we’re sick as dogs!” Now if that’s not the true definition of thundercore, then I don’t know what is.

However, that doesn’t mean it has to be enjoyable, and frankly Cascadia was hardly as exciting and rocktastic as the band would have listeners believe. It’s pretty good in a dark, melodramatic way with its emo-meets-alternative crunch-of-the-early-’90s sort of style, but this is another case of been there/done that with no way out. All loud and snarling the first minute, and then quiet and tender the next, only to come back at double the raging power by the next verse. Formulaic to say the least. Golden moldy, to put it succinctly.

Hearing an album like Cascadia really brings one thing home for me, however. Maybe it’s just that I’ve gotten too old to appreciate this kind of emotional freakout that others can still seem to find a way with which to connect. There’s probably something there that really hits home for the early twentysomethings deep inside all the contorted notes and sounds of songs like “This Quiet Hell” and “Worldwide” that simply don’t resonate for someone now in their 30’s. I don’t know, but nothing about this album hit me in a way that seems like it was calculated.

There were a few moments in there that seemed promising. “Worldwide” does have an interesting way with its slightly emo-math vibe. The tune’s structure is a bit different on the whole, with the hooks secretly tucked away that pop out in a surprise fashion just when things are getting too boring. But who wants to go through 12 songs of that formula? If you’re expecting it, then the surprises have much less impact. Besides, some of us still like an obvious and expected payoff in our songs. Get to the point, lads, don’t dawdle around all day exploring your navels for the punch line.

Yet there are times when Jet by Day can get just plain weird. After the band has nullified your patience with such doomy dreck as “Helicopter to the Hospital”, it pulls something like “Stare at the Sun” out that sounds like some bastardized New Wave amalgam. The sort of thing that a band like Freezepop would give its limbs to record. But it’s not enough. On here, something like that only sticks out like a sore thumb when pressed between layers of the overwrought Neanderthal rhythms of “I Got Time” or “End of the Line”. A joke track that gets lost in translation, as it were.

So while others can find the time to get worked up over the likes of Cascadia, it would seem that all the hoo-ha over its awesome thundercore sound is all for naught. Have we as listeners just reached a point where anything with guitars and a rock sound receives automatic praise simply because we had too many years of teeny bopper groups to sift through? Let’s hope not. There are much better groups out there to cock an ear towards than Jet by Day. Perhaps if they weren’t so thundercore they would have been a little more believable.