Mystery Jets - Curve Of The Earth (2016) [Official Digital Download]

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Mystery Jets - Curve Of The Earth (2016) [Official Digital Download]

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Mystery Jets - Curve Of The Earth (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time - 48:23 minutes | 570 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

Mystery Jets may hail from England, but as their career has spanned over five albums, they've begun to sound more and more American, and their latest record Curve of the Earth is the next step in their progression towards Yankee assimilation. 2012's Radlands was an odd blend of Cool Britannia and good ol' fashioned Americana—imagine four scrawny British lads in oversized cowboy boots and 10-gallon hats and you'll come to grips with the cognitive dissonance of listening to the album. On Curve of the Earth that country twang is a distant memory (only hinted at by the occasional wisp of a slide guitar), now eclipsed by the emotional maturity and ambitious swell of their latest effort. In a statement about their new record, the Jets shared their desire to convey a "bigger picture" and to write "a suite of songs that could transcend our own 'skull-sized kingdoms'"; with a name as intimidating and awe-inspiring as Curve of the Earth they were obviously aiming for the sky (and beyond). Tracks like "1985" and "Taken by the Tide" are built for arena exposure, soaring on orchestral strings and booming riffs unlike anything the Jets have ever done before. Blaine Harrison proves he's as comfortable rattling off commercial-ready hooks about having a crush on your neighbor as he is singing plaintive meditations about human DNA ("Telomere") and astronomy ("Saturnine," "Blood Red Balloon"). Curve of the Earth is an ode to the uncertainty of the quarter-life crisis that somehow manages to make that awkward entry into maturity sound bittersweet and beautiful at once.

Three years in the making, the London-based neo-psych-rockers fifth studio long player, and first with new bassist Jack Flanagan, is a sumptuous distillation of the myriad styles that Mystery Jets have been weaving in and out of over the years, from the proggy post-punk of Making Dens and Zootime to the open road Americana of Radlands. Always an inward looking, albeit reliably quirky gang of retro-casters, Curve of the Earth finds the Jets assessing their place in the universe via nine incrementally protracted set pieces that invoke Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips, early Radiohead, and of course, Pink Floyd. Self-produced in a homespun studio in an abandoned button factory, Curve of the Earth wastes little time in setting the controls for the heart of the sun with the lead single "Telomare," a big, atmospheric blast of anthemic, mid-'90s stadium rock that segues nicely into the equally dreamy "Bombay Blue." From there things bounce back and forth between the bucolic and the sublime, peppered with plenty of crafty guitar bits that run the gamut from angular to downright noodly. Guitarist William Rees noted in the LP's press release that the group has "been through quite a lot in the last couple of years and there have been certain realizations that come with being in a band that has been playing together for two decades," and that sentiment is most deeply felt on the emotionally charged "Taken by the Tide" and the meditative"1985" (the year of frontman Blaine Harrison's birth), both of which strike the perfect balance between immediacy and nostalgia, which is something that Mystery Jets have been slowly but surely perfecting since 2003.