Heave Media

At first mention of The Jaguar Club to a friend, she responded with the question, “Where is that?  In The [West] Village?  Can you get us in?”  While I don’t typically audibly laugh in people’s faces, these multiple follies weren’t what she prided herself on: 1. Her automatic assumption that The Jaguar Club was a trendy bar in an expensive part of town, 2. Her borderline surreptitious smile at the prospect of attending such a place was oh-so un-endearing, and finally 3. Her not knowing the Brooklyn trio and their debut, And We Wake Up Slowly, was not a good thing to admit as a fellow music writer.  In contrast to their album name, And We Wake Up Slowly is anything but something to sleep on. 

Written in “a Brooklyn basement” and recorded upstate, The Jaguar Club presents a frightening creation to “the scene” around here: an amalgamation of classic construction, brilliant musicianship, and just enough indie-quirk to keep them hip. 

I should point out that “indie-quirk” isn’t used here to highlight falsetto vocals and your typical dance-able, sample-able beats.  Singer Will Popadic’s vocals sound like a cross between Paul Banks’s of Interpol and that feeling you get when you’re inebriated and watching an eagle swoop down to a river to catch fish on the Discovery channel.  Yeah, it’s that epic. 

The album kicks off with a slightly contrived, but all-around satisfying gentle ode to the album title.  It, fortunately, segueways with massively reverberating guitars and a snake-like tambourine to the low-end-driven, bouncing, “Sleepwalking.”  This is the first showcase of Yoichiro Fujita’s work; he’s epically talented at bass and seems to understand just as well when to drive a song home from the back end as when to back off.   

“Where No Wild Things Are” is another testament to the authenticity of the band.  When I would normally find myself rolling my eyes at lines like the repeated, “There’s an ocean to cross/There’s an island in our way,” the outright burly delivery by Popadic gives me shivers.  The complete lack of indie-wimp is backed up throughout the rest of the album and it’s more pleasant than anything “castrated-rock” can hope to turn out. 

The rest of the album stomps along in the delicate space of rock-noir and U2-esque guitar work.  Think The National but with more infectious grooves; earworms that amusingly settle in your head, agreeably, for days.  The band has breadth, though.  “Blood Pressure” brings to mind the bouncy, plucky sounds of The Walkmen while “In The Leaves” presents an instrumental track that showcases drummer Jeremiah Joyce’s ability, much like Yoichiro’s, to know when to back off – the result being one of a brilliantly-accomplished atmosphere. 

It’d be wrong to not point out a fault in the album.  While I appreciate the cohesion throughout, sometimes the songs blend too much together.  If it isn’t a track that hits you in the stomach, then it falls into the background and it’s easy to forget you even heard the song.  Nonetheless, this is a great album, full of promise for the band.  The final track, “Perfect Timing,” sums up the band pretty nicely: “I will take you on my back to see/The future looks better.”  This is a band that can support themselves and any amount of critique that comes their way, and there’s nothing but good things up ahead.  If you were looking for a new crew, consider The Jaguar Club.  This debut album is sure to convert you and, with a tour starting up across the East coast and the Midwest, they’ll surely be recruiting an army of fans.

Check out their tour dates here.