GOODBYE JERSEY

This is the debut album from a 5 piece melodic punk from Hamburg in Germany, featuring 15 pretty varied tracks that range from pretty standard lightweight, melody driven punk to quite a few ska based tracks and even some horns thrown in for good measure. Some sharp political observations tie the whole thing together. Album opener ‘Angels & Airwaves’ is pretty straight up punk, providing comment on the current coalition government in Germany. Nothing too radical here to be honest but it is well played and sets the tone. ‘Minutes Likes Bombs’ adds some musical complications and shows off the guys musicianship nicely, with a well crafted song. ‘Mike’ combines a bit of ska with punk to good effect and ‘14 Years’ is a very strong track that moves us back to punk land – I can imagine this being a great live track with its singalong chorus. ‘Backbite’ takes the album strongly into ska territory, with horns aplenty and a strong melody. ‘Here We Go’ sounds like Chumba (in their Tubthumping period) with horns used to good effect and for me is probably the best track on the album. ‘Kill Your TV’ is straight punk with horns, and a nice critique of modern consumer society (kill your TV today!). ‘Zombie Shuffle’ is fast paced ska but sung in German, it actually works pretty well, with a slow reggae breakdown in the middle, I’m falling asleep I’m afraid…Rudely awaken by ‘The Living Dead’ which picks up the pace and has the cracking lyric “they try to eat my brain…” before dropping back to the fast paced, but light ‘Radio Sux’ which is actually pretty good stuff. Album closer ‘Wasteland’ is the longest song on the album and has some German voiceovers (presumably political) which would almost certainly help to galvanise the song. As it is though, it does go on about a minute too long. So, all in all, not a bad album by any means with some real gems in amongst the fifteen tracks. However, too many of the songs do sound similar and would probably be considered fillers. Despite the large number of songs, I’m still not really sure that Goodbye Jersey have forged their own identity yet, and certainly not their own sound. I suspect that the songs would benefit from at least one live airing (which is really where this band should come alive). The album will appeal to fans of NOFX (bearing more than a passing resemblance in places) and it’s worth checking out if this is your thing.

LABEL:

FORMAT:

Long Beach Records

Album

ENTERTAIN ME!

Review by Graham Hilling

RUNNING TIME:

41:49

RELEASE DATE:

20th June 2011

TRACK LISTING

1) Angels & Western Waves; 2) Minutes Like Bombs; 3) Mike; 4) 14 Years; 5) Backbite; 6) Why Desparate?; 7) Doin' Time; 8) Cassandra; 9) Here We Go; 10) Go On; 11) Kill Your TV; 12) Zombie Shuffle; 13) The Living Dead; 14) Radio Sux; 15) Wasteland

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

Germany

"...all in all, not a bad album by any means with some real gems in amongst the fifteen tracks. However, too many of the songs do sound similar and would probably be considered fillers."