Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
If the listener were to find that they were lost in revere whilst listening to The Jigantics’ debut album Daisy Roots, then in the succumbing to love that they will ultimately find in the band’s new album, Seconds Out, they will be nowhere to be found. All maps pointing the way out of the musical maze will be taken from them at the widening gap of the start and any chance of discovering the single route that leads from point A to point B, locked away inside the melody, notes and lyrical genius and placed under a small rock somewhere in the middle of the maze.
Seconds Out is surely beyond what anybody could have expected, the signs were all there in the first release of course but to go out and actually deliver an album that pronounces such abiding passion, such poise that if placed into a ballerina she would be praised as the leading lady in her chosen discipline forever, to deliver that and still retain the magic ingredient of honesty in their lyrics, that is truly astonishing.
Whilst some second albums are an emotional punch bag, the spilling of verbal blood in the studio and the chance to release some tension that builds up between the players, The Jigantics take the world on instead, the punch bag being just how insane the world is, living in a time when such institutions as the banking sector can be bailed out and then the public being charged for doing so was one thing, but then to have the thought of it happening again within a decade, it has to be said, someone somewhere has a warped and perverse sense of humour.
It is in this and other thoughts of 21st Century living, where the old guard, the damned insufferable believe that the general public are so gullible to say “sure, why not, shaft us again”, that the punch bag becomes rightly those who seek a different perspective that puts the rest of us in moral danger.
From the superb rearrangement of Billy Idol’s classic hit Rebel Yell, through to songs such as Radio, the absolute beauty that forms I Will Not Wear The Willow, the dream of country roots in Hate To See You Go Love To Watch You Walk Away and the damnation, the realised curse in the outstanding Frankly, The Jigantics raise the bar on their own work and pronounce dedication to the cause; it is a declaration of war and intent, of subtle gravitas and even if they never reach the same high again, even if they never fight with the same passion, they will make sure that the listener is found safe and secure and relishing the sound of a band who are dependable in making music stand out beyond wild expectations.
Ian D. Hall