Tear of Thought

by

The Screaming Jets

Edit

If anyone is able to listen to this CD and not give it 5 stars, then please email me and I will direct the next white bus, straight jacket and organise the next available padded cell for you.

I will not begin the boring track list break down, as it is simply not worth it. Let me say that this is by far the best album from the Screaming Jets, and if you are only likely to buy one album from this band then make it this one.

How Silverchair ever got the status they received while The Screaming Jets seemed to get stuff all is beyond me.

The Screaming Jets are by far the best live band to come out of Oz in the last 10 years, and let's hope with their new CD and DVD they can put Australia back on the no bull rock map.

Do yourselves a favour and buy this CD you will not regret it.

The follow up to their (domestically) hugely popular debut sees The Screaming Jets exploding their muse and. at 16 tracks and over an hour in length, heaping on the quantity. In keeping with the debut the songwriting is shared around a bit and for most of the tracks the pedal is planted firmly to the metal. This, like the rest of the bands catalog, is not heavy metal but it is boisterous hard rock with the musical focus very much on strong riffs. The Dave Gleeson vox riding the melodies adds an element to the hooks of which this album has plenty.

Whereas on the debut the whole thing seemed to have a certain X factor here that is missing which gives the impression that they only had that one great album in them. songs like Hard Drugs do have a certain quality to them but many of these tunes don't quite cut the mustard. They are solid but lacking a spark. On the other hand there are new elements to the bands muse in the form of introspection such as on the tune Shivers which was a local hit for the band. And there were some tunes left over from this album that went onto the single for Living In England meaning the single was viewed and somewhat marketed as an EP. Looking back it mainly just reminds me of the bands failed attempt to crack the UK market. It's still strange to me that they failed in this endeavour given how poor UK hard rock bands were in the early 90's (well since '86 or so if we're honest).

In summary I suppose this album wasn't quite a stumble as it produced the aforementioned Shivers and the mellow/boogie rockabilly of Helping Hand which opened new directions for the boys. And some of the rockers do sound good after repeated listens. This album fails to improve on the debut, or even match it in the fire and passion stakes. Sorry.