:: Jaywalker - Light And Shade

Jaywalker

If you haven’t heard of Jaywalker that’s quite a shame, to be perfectly honest. The Central Coast band has been slowly working their way up in the music scene, hitting the big time this year when they were awarded a government grant under the very respectable Australian Contemporary Music Touring Program. They’re not exactly newcomers to Aussie rock, voted runners-up in the Australian Music Oz Award ‘People’s Choice’ Category in 2007. And have gone on support Killing Heidi, Diesel, Kate Miller-Hiedke and others on tour. But enough accolades. Nothing proves these boy’s talents better than their debut album The Light & Shade. The very cool album opens with ’20 Years from Now’. It’s immediately proof of why these boys supported Kate Miller-Hiedke, infused with a retro soft-rock vibe that smacks of the country honesty made famous by Keith Urban. Lost in London takes on a fast-paced, almost inconveniently pop tempo that is pleasantly surprising after the previous rock tunes that make up the first half of the album. You could seriously imagine The Fray singing this song, expect they’d have to abandon their constantly melancholic tone and embrace a far more Aussie grunginess. Come to think of it, Jaywalker is uncannily similar to The Fray is some of its songs. ‘Hard Times’ has the same subtle optimism and ‘Crash and Burn’ is as lyrically regretful as any of the tracks The Fray have put in the musical stratosphere. But while The Light & Shade does have some killer tunes that would make the perfect background music to the death scenes in Grey’s Anatomy, it’s not limited to them. As the album title suggests, the tracks are constantly up and down, optimistic and wrought with pain; fast and rocky and operatic and thoughtful. It makes for very pleasant listening. You shove The Light & Shade into your CD player and you may not know what you’re genre you’re going to get, but you can be assured it’s going to be good and you won’t be able to get enough of Jaywalker.