Jupiter One: Sunshower

"Jupiter One are the Red Bull of New York rock music". There's your press cutting for the album, sounds good until you realise what we mean.

Down a can and initially you feel energised, the relief quickly passes and we're left feeling even more lethargic than we were before. We shouldn't blame the band though, there are hundreds-of-thousands like them: bands whose instincts and musical approach place them in one genre, but then feel compelled to crack a more contemporary sound so as to receive some attention.

Usually it goes that such experiments result in a few untenable songs on an otherwise serviceable album, for Jupiter One though, the opposite is true. When investigating their more au courant influences the bar is set well above the humdrum height to which they shall soon retire to.

The appropriately titled "Volcano", the first blast of the album, achieves stage one of the Red Bull effect: an instant pick-me-up guaranteed to imbue the listener with a measure of excitement and energy. Starting the album on a sunny tone, it instantly conjures images of The Delays mixed with a dash of Mew with a slight detour through Hot Hot Heat/Ra Ra Riot territory for the vocals.

The snowstorm-indie approach is depressingly abandoned quicker than the front-line of the French army though. Rising in its stead from the third track "Flaming Arrow" is a scientifically measured strain of the retro-pop virus. A particularly virulent beast which strips creativity, excitement and passion from its host musicians. The word "serviceable" begins to oscillate on the tip of our tongue with alarming regularity.

"Anna" tries to add an 80's twist to the chorus, but it's too little, too 80's, effectively squandering the band's last hope of redemption.

If you ever turn around and see a spiritual hitch-hiker from The Kooks on your sound, you should immediately fulfil your patriotic duty and bludgeon it to death with extreme prejudice. J1, though, take it out to dinner on "Come On" and ask it, "how can you fill the cracks in our re-attempting a modern approach?"

Ultimately then, we're left with an album with one good song, worthy of attention. Even Kula Shaker have better odds than that.