Bluejuice
Company
(Dew Process)
Providing a fresh soundtrack for the world’s roller skating rinks, Sydney band Bluejuice are as cheeky yet heartfelt as ever on their sugar rush of a third album. Company follows 2009’s Head of the Hawk and its ARIA-nominated ’70s-rock-kitsch single ‘Broken Leg’ with a punchy, glossy set from the five-piece. Drawing from both Boyz II Men-style ’90s R&B and bygone AM-radio hits, the boys end up sounding more like Hall & Oates, among many other daggy touchstones. They blast past ironic self-awareness and wind up back at a place of purity, as if making music for the very first time.
The only trouble is, it’s a front-weighted album that stacks all its best tunes in the first half. There’s no denying the paralysing catchiness of opener ‘Can’t Keep Up’: from its handclapped breakdown to under-three-minute running time, it summons ABBA as much as Alan Thicke, one-time master of the TV theme song. Co-written by Sparkadia’s Alex Burnett, lead single ‘Act Yr Age’ is an easy singalong, while ‘You Haven’t Changed’ is like obvious influence Cheap Trick (the following song is called ‘Cheap Trix’) made even glossier. With their show-stopping choruses and entwined piano/guitar hooks, these initial anthems are jingle-like in their infectious grip.
Meanwhile, the funk flirtations the band have been most well known for since 2007’s Cake-like debut single ‘Vitriol’ get an airing in the next two songs; ‘I’ll Put You On’ challenges OK Go for geeky white-boy-R&B supremacy, while the Scissor Sisters-ish ‘The Recession’ makes use of both a solid premise – blaming economical downsizing for dropping a girlfriend – and a clever opening line in “Now is the winter of our discotheque.” On this first half of Company, dual frontmen Jake Stone and Stavros Yiannoukas shine as brightly as the rest of the band, flanked here by session musicians and extra singers.
The second half can’t muster the same squirrely momentum. Though catchy, ‘Aspen, New York’ and ‘Dressed for Success’ feel more kneejerk than others here, and the piano-led approach starts to sound same-y by ‘Do You Will?’ and the second Alex Burnett co-write ‘Shock’. The formula is welcomely shaken up on the final two songs, but that merely gives us the dance-floor irritation of ‘Kindaevil’ and the overly familiar harmonies and synths of ‘On My Own’, a co-write with The Presets’ Julian Hamilton.
Those later songs aren’t without virtue, but they lack the overpowering charisma of ‘Can’t Keep Up’ and its kin. But given just how much Bluejuice invest themselves in time-honoured pop early on, perhaps we should forgive some eventual wandering.
Doug Wallen
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