Album Review: Jagwar Ma - Every Now & Then

Jagwar Ma's second release has been a long time coming (since 2013's seriously popular Howlin').

Perhaps too long. In 2016 they have traded in their jangly psycho-pop and wry silliness for a lot more production and a bit too much seriousness. The album kicks off with a soundscape that builds into an epic crescendo. It's full of promise and introspection, but it doesn't really go anywhere. The album as a whole feels like it is about this very problem - a failure to launch - but it goes too far in making its point.

"Your lips match your toe nails... what a creep for me to notice," coos vocalist Gabriel Winterfield on the album's high point, Loose Ends, over an appropriately awkward kaleidoscope of tumbling horns and hi-hats. (The track also gives the album its name - "Every now and then I gotta get up... can you tell that I need this?").

The tracks that follow, however, are repetitive (albeit well- and cleverly-produced) Afro house-infused shoegaze. Tracks begins with a few lyrics, the vocals get mixed into one of Jono Ma's soundscapes, then the rhythm is turned up and the track ends. At first this is interesting, but by track five you really want it launch into something more. There are a few catchy songs that people will bob their heads to in the car and a few more that are waiting for a late-night dancefloor. But it doesn't quite work as an album.