Review: Jet’s “Shaka Rock”

 Jet’s 2003 album, “Get Born,” did have a few minor bits of excitement, but  it’s time to face the fact that Jet have very little to offer.  They want to be an amalgam of AC/DC and the Beatles but they lack the potency, backbone and fortitude of both.  Their 2006 follow-up, “Shine On” felt like a less impressive retread of their first record.  In retrospect, maybe “Get Born” wasn’t that great an album after all and merely coasted by, winning its audience with shrewd marketing maneuvers.  Their break-out hit, “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” seemed to borrow a little too liberally (perhaps accidently) from Iggy Pop’s classic, “Lust For Life,” and “Look What You’ve Done,” the album’s best song (and the group’s best song to date) sounds like a second rate Beatles ballad.   The closing track on “Get Born,” “Timothy,” wasn’t a single, but it should have been.  This slow tale of an alien trying to find his spaceship served as the only thought-provoking track on the record.  This brings up the point that the members of Jet only show any true hint of any kind of lasting potential on their slower songs.  When they rock out on asinine hits like “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is” or (even worse) “Cold Hard Bitch,” they become brainless, aimless puppets trying to bring the “Rawk!”  It doesn’t work for bands like Buckcherry.  It definitely doesn’t work for Jet. 
    So, how are Jet in 2009?  For starters, “Shaka Rock” may be the worst album title of the year this side of Sugar Ray calling their new album “Music For Cougars.”  It doesn’t help that this album makes “Shine On” seem like a masterpiece and “Get Born” seem like the Holy Grail. (At this rate, their fourth album should be frightening!)
    “K.I.A. (Killed In Action) starts the record, and it begins with a false glimmer of hope. “I live in the middle of a combat zone. / And I’m too scared to pick up the phone,” Nic Cester sings.  His brother Chris keeps a swaggering drumbeat in back just for a moment so you think this might be interesting.  Then it all goes down the drain quickly with the “uh-huh, uh-huh, uh, huh” chorus and the “This ain’t fair / I ain’t scared,” refrain.  This song is beyond lyrically ridiculous and the music is derivative, exhibiting numerous hard and classic rock clichés. The band simply doesn’t have the skill to pull this off convincingly.  Perhaps around the time of “Get Born,” they could have, but now they seem to be six years further down into the abyss.  What kind of line is, “Let’s get into a coma, just like the stars?”  It’s a hacky line!  Whereas Jet used to possess a vague hint of power, they have now wandered into the all too unintentionally hilarious world of self-parody.
    “Beat On Repeat” apes the Clash’s style so horribly that Joe Strummer should be rolling over in his grave.  In fact, one gets the idea that the members of Jet want this to be their answer to “Rock The Casbah.”  The truth is that this song is so laughably ready to be mocked that it shouldn’t have even been let out of the studio doors.  Comparing it to the Clash in any way shape or form actually is probably an insult to that band’s stellar legacy.    By putting this track on an album, Jet have insulted us all. 
    “She’s a Genius” takes a basic bass-line and mirrors it with a guitar. Nic Cester sings about his “girl” and how “she only listens to the radio to see who’s alive.” The song is full of ham-fisted lines like this.  If one line doesn’t make sense, another is just serving up more clichés like “she really blows my mind.”  This song makes a glammed-up, trashy band like Louis XIV sound innovative in comparison.
    “Hearts On Fire” mines similar classic-rock mockery, but it seems to have an ever-so-slight danceable   sheen.  This track also wants to be their answer to “Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)” but it just falls flat. 
    “Seventeen” benefits from the use of piano during the verses, but once again, its weak lyrics and its reliance on “oh-oh-oh” chorus call-outs don’t do it any favors.  It’s not that great a song, but it just might be the best song here.  Would it kill Jet to try to be an innovative band?
    The acoustic strumming on “La Di Da” makes it sound like an awful mix of Heart’s “Crazy On You” and the Beatles’ “The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill.”  It’s pointless.  The beat switches during the chorus and the song takes a brighter turn for a second, but it’s too late and unsalvageable. 
    “Goodbye Hollywood” tries to be one of those arrogant tales of decadence lost and actually goes as far as to recycle yet another clichéd line, “Life can build you up just to knock you down.”  To their benefit, there are a few surprises in the arrangement when nearly all the instruments pull back leaving just an organ and vocals for a period. It ends up sounding like a less intricate answer to E.LO.  The track still isn’t quite a winner, but it is nice to hear a surprise or two.  Jet are a by-the-numbers band.  Nothing groundbreaking is expected here, so any hint of thought is considered relatively golden.  They’ve set the bar so low that even small victories are celebrated. 
    “Walk” may be better than “Seventeen,” with its piano riff and its thrusting beat.  The “yeah yeah yeah,” chorus nearly kills it, however.  (This is a band badly in need of a lyricist!!!)
  “Times Like This” is built around a belching guitar line, repeating the same note over and over again.  The note changes from time to time but the pattern stays the same.  It’s not necessary.  It aims to be a unifying party song. (“From the Hollywood hills down to Ecuador / Everyone’s the same when they hit the floor. / They feel the way they want to feel.”) This is an unflattering stereotype of a rock record.  The lyrics make little sense, full of empty platitudes and contradictory sentiments.  My guess is that the band is trying to say we should all stick together because in “times like this, you’re on your own.”  
“Let Me Out” is a tenth rate attempt at a Replacements-style song.  It has some lift, but it’s nothing we haven’t already heard.  
  “Start The Show” is a rock stereotype with no substance.  It’s all lobotomized testosterone and might.  It even goes as far as to put a cow bell at its center for a bit.  (Seriously?  A cow bell?  Didn’t they see the Christopher Walken SNL skit?) Again, this track is needless.  
  “She Holds A Grudge” is a ballad.  Considering that on their other two records, the band shined most on their ballads, you’d think this song would fare better. It’s the album’s closer.  After everything we have heard, it just sounds like more shape-shifting and recycling, even as the tempo changes.  
  “Shaka Rock is not a worthy record.  It isn’t the album Jet should have released.  They should’ve put their naysayers to rest by delivering something truly dynamic.  Instead, they issued their most vacant album to date.  On “Get Born,” there were hints of potential.  Maybe that potential isn’t as dead as it seems.  Maybe their next record will be outstanding and prove me wrong.  I am rooting for them to succeed, but I’m not counting on it.  This record is so recycled, it feels like instant garbage.  Time will probably only make this problem worse.  This is just plain awful! There’s no sugar-coating it.  There’s no getting around it.