JAGUAR LOVE

Band: JAGUAR LOVE

Genres: Punk / Lounge / Sass-Rock / Alternative / Garage / Indie / Keyboards / Pop / Dance / Electronic
Related artists: The Blood Brothers, Neon Blonde, Soiled Doves, Head Wound City, Kill Sadie, Frank Tooth Band, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Sharks Keep Moving, Vade and The Vogue.
Country: Portland, Oregon USA
Years Active: 2007-2010
Song: "Bone Trees and a Broken Heart"
Album: "Take Me to the Sea"
Year: 2008
Label(s): Matador / Fat Possum Records / Second Nature Recordings
This post's artist is from the November 2014 Mix. This is track #3.
You can download the October Mix#11 right here or get the new November Mix#12 here.
For fans of: The Blood Brothers, Neon Blonde, Soiled Doves, Life In Vacuum and the (International) Noise Conspiracy.

The Blood Brothers had many musical heads. In one song you could get bombarded with a dizzying array of styles. So I guess it's not all that surprising that most Blood Brothers offshoots were endeavors that generally honed in on those genre specific styles. JAGUAR LOVE seemed like the logical progression for Johnny Whitney after dabbling in Soiled Doves and Neon Blonde and his continued rise in his testicles...errr, voice. This band also boasted Cody on guitars, also from The Blood Brothers, Neon Blonde and Waxwing.

The first JAGUAR LOVE album 'Take Me to the Sea' is a fantastically accessible sassy post-punk, pop-rock album. There are some screamy numbers to keep fans like me happy, but it's truly some of the completely melodic songs that make this such a great record. "Bats Over the Pacific Ocean", "Humans Evolve Over Skyscrapers" and "My Organ Sounds Like" all have a very pre-"Lazer Life" sound (from the Blood Brothers LP 'Young Machetes'), although "Bone Trees and a Broken Heart" is the softest, most melodic and stunning standout from the record. Seriously, Johnny Whitney showed with this song that he could write catchy stuff with more refined melodies and tighter control of his wailing. Just a beautiful song. "Highways of Gold", "Jaguar Pirates", "Antoine and Birdskull" touch on the harder, screamier side of the band but never gets into hardcore territory, as "Antoine and Birdskull" sounds much akin to the (International) Noise Conspiracy's "Smash It Up" (great song, video here).

I didn't hear anything about the band for a few years, and then I posthumously discovered the 'Hologram Jams' album. Ehhhhh...not so good. "Cherry Soda" (sweet lyrics, "Sugarcoated cherry soda puking on the lawn, it's 6am the party's over, everybody's gone. Rode a motherfucking mastadon to my high school prom, it's on it's on like Immigrant Song") and "Jaguar Warriors" are songs I can get behind, but the rest are too over the top and weird. They aren't necessarily bad, but as a child of the 80s I dislike the vast majority of music from that time period (because it sucks). This LP stuffs the 1980s into a funnel and blends it in a manner that makes me feel queasy and uncomfortable because after such a stellar debut I had hoped for more. Oops.

Still, grab both albums in the download. Put it all on and experience music that sounds like it has been dipped in drugs then melted down into a massive ruby which is held in front of the sun and set on hyperactive rotation. What? Exactly.

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DISCOGRAPHY
Click )==>here<==( to download the band's complete discography in mp3 form.

2008 - Take Me to the Sea cd/12"LP

2010 - Hologram Jams cd/12"LP

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(2008) JAGUAR LOVE - "Bone Trees and a Broken Heart" (from 'Take Me to the Sea')

(2008) JAGUAR LOVE - "Humans Evolve into Skyscrapers" (from 'Take Me to the Sea')

(2008) JAGUAR LOVE - "Jaguar Pirates" (from 'Take Me to the Sea')

(2009) JAGUAR LOVE - "Cherry Soda" (from 'Hologram Jams')

(2009) JAGUAR LOVE - "Jaguar Warriors" (from 'Hologram Jams')

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JAGUAR out of print mp3 discography download

(download here)

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