Jakobinarina - This Is An Advertisement (EMI)
4/5
By: Michael Cragg
Self-referential irony is all well and good if everyone is in on the joke. Take those people walking round wearing diamante-studded Iron Maiden T-shirts, or Motorhead vests from Top Shop; are they even aware of who these bands are and that it's meant as an ironic statement? Probably not. Are Hard-Fi aware that having 'No Cover Art' written on the front of their new album (complete with specific font and colour code) is the same as having a normal sleeve design? Actually, I think they're being serious (plus, it's a total rip off of XTC's 'Go 2' - have a look).
Jakobinarina, a six piece from Iceland, may only be seventeen but they display on this single a cynicism beyond their tender years. Luckily, they also have a wicked sense of humour, a key ingredient if irony is going to work.
'This Is An Advertisement', as the title suggests, is a song about releasing singles to make money and sell albums. Lyrically, it burns with vitriolic anger at a capitalist, consumerist culture and by the second verse singer Gunnar Bergmann barks, "We will even change our name/ To the Coca-Cola band/ Just to get our pockets filled". Needless to say, the band are signed to a major label, or as they have it, are "property of a legal company".
Clever-clever lyrics aside, 'This Is An Advertisement' is a brilliantly spiky slice of guitar pop that builds to an almighty crescendo with Bergmann's hate-it-or-love-it voice reaching an ear-piercing crescendo over crunching guitars and keyboard stabs.
Having finished tours with bands as diverse as Brian Jonestown Massacre and Klaxons, hopes are high for the band's debut album 'The First Crusade'. Guitarist Hallberg Dadi Hallbergsson refers to it as "a reference work for how great albums can be". I think he's being ironic, but who can tell anymore?
Watch the video to 'This Is An Advertisement' HERE.
Artists in this article: Jakobinarina
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