The Cure returned in full, depressing form with Bloodflowers. The Cult showed they still had muscle with Beyond Good and Evil. Even the Mission UK proved they could mount a creative comeback with Aura.
Is there any reason why anyone shouldn’t put their money behind Gene Loves Jezebel and their new album, Exploding Girls?
Well, maybe.
I mean, if you could buy stock in recording artists — and, given the success of Hollywood Stock Exchange, there’s probably already a website where you can — surely there wouldn’t be but so many people out there still holding onto their shares of Gene Loves Jezebel.
Hell, most cautious investors would’ve probably felt obliged to trade ’em away back in ’89, when Michael Aston left the band not too long after they released The House of Dolls (featuring “The Motion of Love”).
The thing is, Gene Loves Jezebel has never been a band for casual investors. You pretty much need to be in for the long haul, or you’re going to have a heart attack watching their ups and downs.
For instance, after Michael departed, Jay Aston kept Gene Loves Jezebel going without his twin brother, released Kiss of Life, and scored the band’s biggest-ever hit, “Jealous”. That’s definitely an up.
But, then, the band left Geffen and, in a move seemingly designed to give their management an aneurysm, passed on a chance to sign to Atlantic Records in favor of a brand new label, Savage. A gamble, to be sure.
And, yet, their Savage debut, Heavenly Bodies, started to shift decent units courtesy of lead single “Josephina”, so it seemed as though it was a gamble that had paid off — until less than a year later, when Savage went belly-up, taking with it any further chance of the album seeing a greater success.
If that wouldn’t have inspired frantic cries of “sell, sell, sell,” what would?
It would be over half a decade before Gene Loves Jezebel would come out of retirement . . . and, when they did, things got a little sticky.
Both Michael and his twin brother, Jay, had decided that they both had the right to call themselves Gene Loves Jezebel.; in 1999, Jay’s version of the group released VII, while Michael’s incarnation put out Love Lies Bleeding. The general consensus was that VIIwas the best Gene Loves Jezebel album since The House of Dolls, while Love Lies Bleeding was, though musically impressive, more of a Michael Aston solo album than anything else.
How ironic, then, that the Aston brother who lost the right to use the Gene Loves Jezebel name was Jay.
Still, Michael seemed to fall back into the swing of things when, two years later, Gene Loves Jezebel returned with Giving Up The Ghost, which the All Music Guide called “a welcome return by a seasoned band that can more than hold its own alongside the acts of 2001 — and perhaps teach them a thing or two.”
And, now, 2003 brings us Exploding Girls, released on Aston’s own label, Bless Momma Records.
While it might not bear the major-label gloss of albums gone by, anyone who’s lost track of Gene Loves Jezebel since Heavenly Bodies may be surprised to find that, for all practical purposes, it doesn’t sound like the group’s changed one bit — which is a little ironic, given that it was Jay fronting the band on Heavenly Bodies rather than Michael.
Certainly, it’s still appropriate to check the box marked “goth” when describing the group’s sound, and Michael Aston’s voice, like his brother’s, is as distinctive as ever. Aston has said that the album is about women that he’s loved in his time or who’ve at least affected him in some way.
The lead track, “Exploding Girl”, which sets the musical mood for the album as a whole, is apparently about Wafa Idris, Palestine’s first female suicide bomber. Its sort-of title track isn’t the only reason to cock an eyebrow at the lyrical content of Exploding Girls. On “Downhill Both Ways”, Aston moans, “I’m just a man / I’m not an American”. In other words, he’s not afraid to get personal.
Musically, tracks like “Jenin”, “Downhill Both Ways”, and “The Wanting Song” are highlights, but the album’s mood is so consistent that all ten tracks fit together into a nice, dark blend. Still, it’s that first track, “Exploding Girl”, that sells the disc as being the Gene Loves Jezebel you know and love.
Once you’re in, you won’t want to go anywhere.
Is Jay missed? Sure, to an extent, particularly if you’re a fan of, say, Discover. But given that these twins have virtually identical voices, if someone told you this was Jay Aston rather than Michael Aston, you wouldn’t have any trouble buying into it.
Exploding Girls finds Gene Loves Jezebel still quite capable of putting out strong albums.
Take a risk. Or, in the parlance of the stock market: buy, buy, buy!!!