Band: Jawbone
Release: Loss of Innocence
Label: Blood and Ink Records
Release Date: May 2011
Track Listing:
- Histemi
- Light of Day
- Faithless
- Loss of Innocence
- Money, Power, Lies
Indiana’s Jawbone bring the fury with their Blood & Ink Records debut Loss of Innocence. The five-track EP clocks-in at 13 minutes, and every minute is awesome. With an overall sound resembling bands like Advent and Converge (although I hesitate to put Jawbone on the skill-level of Converge yet) Jawbone produce a relentless, creative and punishing sound. The guitar-work on Loss of Innocence is technical and it never stops; not technical in the sense of metalcore but more using chords to produce an intense, almost sinister, sound. Vocally lead singer Clint Vaughn sounds somewhat like Bane with his slightly nasally preaching/speaking style, which works well over this hardcore foundation.
The mix on Loss of Innocence is excellent, especially in relative to their previous work “As Unmarked Graves” where the vocals were very tough to decipher and the low-end was almost non-existent. Loss of Innocence however sounds great, the vocals sit comfortably in the mix, loud enough to understand but not so much that the effect of yelling doesn’t seem genuine.
The overall theme of Loss of Innocence is that of not putting our faith in the American ideals. From “Histemi” where Clint admits “my closet is full, so leave me alone” talking about how we all have skeletons in our closet, to “Light of Day” where abortion appears to be the subject matter. On the fourth track Clint opens with a scream of the song-title “Loss … of … innocence” which reminded me of how Comeback Kid starts all of their songs live. The songs speaks of how we can’t find hope in ourselves “It can’t be found within ourselves.” The track “Faithless” is really the pinnacle of the EP with it’s killer drumming, heavy breakdown and the lyrics talk about Clint’s conversion to Christianity (about 4 years ago), with powerful lines like “The truths you find will take away your pride / like He did mine.”
OVERALL another excellent release from Blood & Ink Records; where other labels might be concerned with quantity, Blood & Ink always brings the quality. Jawbone have given us another reason to stick with hardcore these days, as the creativity and intensity is re-emerging. Loss of Innocence will definitely be on everyone’s “Best Of” lists at the end of 2011.