By Stan Cierlitsky
I am really excited to review one of my all-time favorite bands. We Were Promised Jetpacks return next week on Big Scary Monsters Records with a new EP called Out of Interest, which is a follow-up to last year's incredible album The More I Sleep, The Less I Dream. It's a five-track collection of unreleased songs and demos. Full disclosure, I actually think every song Jetpacks has ever written is good, so you might not get a good impartial review here.
The first track, "When Getting Lost" starts out pretty brooding. It's a fairly slow song (for the Jetpacks), and it's another in a long line of great Jetpacks B-Sides (see "Ships With Holes Will Sink"). I really like the lyric, "It's taking forever, ready or not. It'll take even longer with one eye on the clock."
The second song Is my favorite from the EP. It's called "Same Mistakes". Not only does this song sound like it should be on the Dream album, but it would have even been one of the stronger songs on that 2019 release. This cut ends huge. "It's all in my head. I'll give up everything, to keep talking with you instead."
Next are the two demos, "Not Wanted" and "Impossible". They show the band's chops in the raw. These demos sound pretty close to the originals (without the immaculate production), and they immediately make you imagine standing in front of the band in a crowded little club seeing them live (which I have eight times now). Really good, but nowhere near essential numbers, though.
The last track is called "Miles Away". It's almost as good as "Same Mistakes". For some reason, the opening reminds me a little of "Pear Tree". It's also the only original that wasn't released as a taster. So, this is the one you fans will be waiting for. Like most Jetpacks songs, this too has a lyric that sticks with me. This one seem appropriate for this time of quarantine and trying to be safe, with its lyrics: "I wanna be the one you blame, so I'm breathing on everything." Makes me wonder if Adam Thompson wrote that lyric after this all started. The guitar at the end is extraordinary, and a nice way for the EP to end. With original guitarist Michael Palmer leaving the band last year, I wonder if this is one of the last things he did with Jetpacks.
Please check out the new EP next week. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Out of Interest is out via Big Scary Monsters on June 26.
More details on the EP and the band here.
[Photo: We Were Promised Jetpacks]