Jet
Shine On

(Atlantic)

First Appeared in The Music Box, December 2006, Volume 13, #12

Written by John Metzger

In crafting its sophomore effort Shine On, Jet didn’t even make an attempt to broaden the formula that it utilized on its attention-grabbing debut Get Born. Instead, it merely altered the composition of its blueprint by playing down its Stones-y swagger and AC/DC crunch in favor of pushing a blast of Beatle-esque psychedelia through the arena-friendly bombast of Oasis. The problem is that the ensemble is far better at the former than it is at the latter, and even Oasis sounded like a pale imitation of its heroes. It’s not that Shine On is a bad album, per se, but much like Jet’s debut there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done a thousand times before. Bring It Back, for example, alternates between its Paul McCartney/Fastball choruses and its John Lennon/Oasis verses, while Hey Kids contains elements of AC/DC, Blind Melon, and The Who.

What’s particularly troubling, however, is that much of Shine On sounds ridiculously uninspired, and although the effort has its moments, most of them are fleeting. There’s a brief instant in the center of Come On Come On when Jet seems to find its groove, and not coincidentally, this occurs just as the song undergoes a shift in its paradigm from Oasis to the Rolling Stones. Elsewhere, the ensemble flutters in and out of focus on the fuzzed-out fury of That’s All Lies — an enthusiastic, Foo Fighters-style rocker that is speckled with bits of Weezer and Jane’s Addiction — while the acoustic, Rubber Soul-era folk-pop of Eleanor, with its tight-knit harmonies, makes for a charming, if forgettable diversion. Where Jet’s blatant appropriations once were delivered so exuberantly that they seemed to matter, however, the group’s numerous missteps now make its lack of identity all the more apparent. Until Jet can figure out what it is and what it wants to be, it’s unlikely that the ensemble ever will grow up to be anything important. ½

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Ratings

1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!

Copyright © 2006 The Music Box