Unfortunately the source of the quote on this one is no longer available, as far as I’m aware. Maybe The Music sent the original article to an archive somewhere.
The quote’s probably available elsewhere.
From the get-go, my stance is quite clear.
Reading over this makes me want to edit its entirety.
However, I’m leaving it as is as this is how it was and this is how I was writing reviews a little over two years ago.
My colleague and I are working on growing Culture Eater so we can have more things covered whilst taking the pressure of continually putting out content off of ourselves. Hence our going onto Patreon.
We’re looking at what we can give to supporters as we don’t want to set up a one way relationship, so suggestions are welcome. Please consider supporting, or at least sharing the Patreon page with others.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
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Welcome to Sexless by The Jensens, where the sounds are of last year’s Summer, the Summer before that one, and the Summer before the Summer before last year’s Summer, except it’s now Autumn.
The basis of the music seems to be some sort of idea of late 60’s / early 70’s-era shimmery-sounding pop and surf rock drenched in more reverb than necessary. There’s a light, fun quality to a lot of what is heard and the music is played decently, with what each instrument needs to do for each song being quite clear.
The songs mostly sound fun and roll along at a good speed, not feeling like they’re longer or shorter than they are which is much to their benefit as they seem consciously designed to have people dancing to them.
The problem is that whilst the songs are written decently enough, due how The Jensens used sound they don’t offer anything that hasn’t already been offered by a good number of bands from the last few years. Some of the songs have a bit more of a spring than others and the songs are positioned with each other well enough and It sounds like they know what they want to pursue, but there’s nothing to suggest that they’re doing this type of pop better than anyone else.
In regards to the lyrics, to quote The Jensens: “It’s about wilfully denying yourself of something instinctual, as well as the magnetism of desire. An internal argument of wanting love, but having no more time you’re prepared to give. It’s about sex being both a vital shared experience and a temporary distraction of a life otherwise lived at existential breaking point. And how pursuing that experience, is to enter a world of sacrifice and convention. It’s about appreciating the fact that your mind has been trained to feed you the notion of significance, by way of the libido, but ultimately questioning the necessity of all of it.” (The Music, 2017)
This can be extended to the rest of Sexless. Lyrically a good chunk of what you hear seems to be about the dichotomy of sex and feels very much like what a teenager thinks an adult thinks makes mature lyrics. Passages such as “You said you thought it out, so what’s it all about / Don’t you know me better? / What’s the point in doing a girl like you?” from “Drowning” and “Darling / That you might hate me / Well, you made me feel so bad / ‘Cause every time you said the wrong thing I turned around and took you back” from “Everybody Talks” show that the band have worked on what is being sung, but they come off as cringe-worthy more than they do thought-provoking or exploratory.
On top of this, the delivery feels rather forced. Lines such as “Girl can’t you see / You belong to me” from “Bones” wouldn’t necessarily be notable. However, the way that particular line is sung (as well as the rest of the song) is done in an overly emotional and miserable-sounding manner that has it crosses over to sounding rather creepy and controlling.
Whilst avoiding the creepiness, most of the vocals follow the same process of being overly wrought with emotion. There are moments when the delivery works well and feels natural (despite the chorus of “Don’t Disagree”, the use of harmony is quite good), but otherwise they come close to sounding ingenuine.
Aside from the above issues, it feels very much like The Jensens were getting all their pain and angst over relationships out and instead of being humble about it, tried to make it out to be some sort of grandiose statement.
Sexless shows that The Jensens do have potential.
There’s nothing wrong with some fun pop music, which this release does contain. However, everything found here has been heard before far too many times in recent years to the point where it is difficult to discern them from other artists making the same kind of music. This combined with the lyrics does not make for a decent collection of songs..
Being their second release, one shouldn’t expect The Jensens to be pulling out the most amazing of songs.
With that being said, they certainly can do better than Sexless.
~ Quote referenced from The Music.
Staff Writer 2017, The Music, accessed 10/04/2017 (http://themusic.com.au/music/streams/2017/02/28/premiere-the-jensens-gaf-song/)
Stupidity Hole 