“File Under White Hot” Live Review: Jetplane Landing - Mister Smiths on 07/10/03

Sometimes the intellectual graves we dig for the purposes of getting across "what a band sounds like" - AKA the pigeonholes, the neat slots, the fucking marketing categories - seem even more redundant than they normally do.

Case in point: Jetplane Landing.

Vast choruses; spastic hardcore riffing that veers between Black Flag rage and Helmet clever-time change crunch; honest-to-Goddamn melodies that make you wonder why Dave Grohl isn't this good any more. Suggestions on a postcard, please?

These boys not only sound bloody brilliant they jerk about the stage like they're infested with some nasty skin-crawling virus. The amount of energy that fizzes out of songs like 'Writing the Ways Down' and 'The Violence' has everyone in the place shuffling and jerking almost as much as Andrew Ferris does behind his guitar. A couple of committed kids down the front can't resist the insistent tug of the constant guitar assault and launch into a mini-pit.

But Jetplane Landing aren't just some mindless blur of sweat or pathetic Emo mope-merchants. They've got lyrics as endearingly odd and spiky as their guitars - the lines in their recent single 'Calculate the Risk', "a detoxing, high achieving, selfish motherfucker/ I'd rather be a reservoir" is a case in point - and their hearts are as big as their Boeing 747-size choruses.

There is nothing to dislike about them. And I try hard, y'know. Contrary to their name, this Jetplane is taking off.

Oh yeah, did I forget to pigeonhole them for you, Ladeez 'n' Gennnelmen?

File under "white-hot".

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