The Brink

The Jezabels have followed their AMP-winning first album with more big anthems and singalong choruses. But the lyrics grate, as does the reliance on melodramatic singer Hayley Mary, writes CHRISTOPHER LEWIS.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] A lot of people at Triple J really want to know if The Brink will keep the Jezabels juggernaut going. The answer is that if their listeners are happy with more of the same pop, then yes; though this album is unlikely to attract anyone that wasn’t already captured by Prisoner or 2010’s Dark Storm EP. If anything, The Brink might be the precipice for the band to lose a few fans, people that were hoping for something a bit more challenging or visceral five years into their career.

The primary question is this: through what prism should we judge the success or failure of this album and this band? What are they trying to achieve artistically? Are they purely a pop band on a quest to conquer the charts by any means necessary? Or are they reaching for something more?

Thanks largely to Hayley’s dramatic vocals; they’ve got this pop music game in the bag. With tones of a young Tori Amos, it seems like each song’s purpose is to build to the moment where Hayley Mary can belt out a chorus in her high register. This formula is applied to each song with little deviance. And it makes sense; her voice is at its most affecting when she’s throwing the kitchen sink at the microphone. But it does become a tad predictable and a little too close to Katy Perry.

The trilogy of ‘Time to Dance’, ‘Look of Love’ and ‘Beat to Beat’ are all ’80s bubblegum pop, with preset string sections that don’t even pretend to be real and keyboard stabs that could have come from a keytar. Yet all three set out to achieve the same end and rank according to their tracklisting; ‘Time to Dance’ is as good a throwaway pop song as they have on this album, while the others stand relatively as imitators.

“The only obvious criticism is the lack of sonic evolution.”

From a marketing perspective, the biggest fear The Jezabels would’ve had about their second album is a lack of choruses, because that’s where The Temper Trap fell down and choruses are something their canon to date has had in spades. Luckily for them, it takes barely a minute to allay those fears, as the album opener and title track mimics the production of The Killers’ Sam’s Town by applying all the sheen and gloss of a Cosmopolitan magazine to a four-and-a-half-minute epic. There is no shortage of catchy, hummable, singalong choruses on this album; the only obvious criticism is their lack of sonic evolution, as any of these songs could sit happily next to ‘Disco Biscuit Love’ on their 2009 EP The Man is Dead. But perhaps that in itself is a failure.

The band are at their most lovable when their songs exist organically and not reaching for U2 stadium moments, which is ironic considering the opening guitar riff of ‘Time to Dance’ is vintage The Joshua Tree. And unsurprisingly, after 40 minutes of Hayley’s high-pitched hollering, it’s on the tracks where they underplay their lead singer’s greatest strength that they achieve the most refreshing results. ‘Angels of Fire’ doesn’t overly rely on Hayley’s falsetto and acts as a welcome neutraliser to the album’s otherwise high-tempo machine, while similarly on ‘Psychotherapy’ her voice is mixed down in favour of a beautiful piano that makes the ambience all the more hypnotic. It is on these two tracks that the potential for The Jezabels to be more than just Hayley Mary plus backing band is seen, but unfortunately these two moments are all The Brink gives us.

Hayley has said that lyrically this album is more personal in nature compared to their previous material, but it is her proclivity for melodrama and her inability to express herself without resorting to clichés and aphorisms that let her execution down. Some of the lyrics on this album are destined to be inscribed in heavyset type on the inside of high school diaries, like “I love you like we’re in the movies,” which sounds like it was written by Taylor Swift. But what is most disappointing is that she continually reaches for the most obvious adjectives, metaphors and similes to get her point across: “The skies are grey” etc. And when she asks the faux-philosophical question, “Do you remember how proud we were right before the fall?” It just seems a little lazy for a woman of her intelligence and it’s hard to find room for her moodiness when there is no wisdom to be found in it.

“‘The End’ is at once enthralling and totally forgettable.”

One could argue that it’s a hallmark of good pop music when you find yourself singing inane lyrics for days on end. And maybe that’s it; maybe we should expect nothing more than superficial, exceptionally well-made pop music from The Jezabels. Lead single ‘The End’ achieves this with aplomb; it is at once enthralling and totally forgettable.

As a band dishing up cookie-cutter anthems, they have a runaway success on their hands with this album. But as a development of their sound and as a piece of music that could intellectually and poetically affect their audience, The Brink is flaccid and uninspiring. And while they overplay their hand when it comes to Hayley’s vocal arrangements, the truth is they would be utterly boring without her. It might just take a bit more time for them to learn that sometimes, when it comes to musical theatrics in pop, less can be more.

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‘The Brink’ is out now independently through MGM. Tour dates below; tickets go on sale February 20.

Mon, April 28 – Sydney Opera House, Sydney, NSW
Tues, April 29 – Sydney Opera House, Sydney, NSW
Fri, May 2 – The Palais, Melbourne, VIC [w/Gang of Youths]
Tues, May 6 – The Tivoli Theatre, Brisbane, QLD [w/Gang of Youths]
Fri, May 9 – The Astor Theatre, Perth, WA [w/Gang of Youths]