You know one of the best ways to discover new bands? When you’re going to see a band you already like and you’ve not heard of the . Either do a little research in advance or at the very least turn up early enough to see them.
An example for the former is this review. Boy Jumps Ship have the task of opening proceedings for Patent Pending on their current UK run. Historically I’ve ended up a fan of almost every act I’ve seen Patent Pending share a stage with, either as headliner or . Basically it seems that if Joe and the boys like a band, chances are I will as well.
Wake Up is out on April 22nd so I’m not sure if you’ll be able to get a full flavour of it before the tour ends – Boy Jumps Ship may be selling copies on the road, I don’t know – but I’m sure they’ll be playing a set based around it.
With a set of songs which are incredibly catchy incredibly quickly (imagine Ebola coupled with that thing you were trying to avoid that was being ed around the office last month), it seems that Patent Pending have once again chosen well. Opener “Burn” has a great head-nodding rhythm. One or two words in there also give away the band’s origins with little inflections – they hail from God’s country. By whom I mean Alan Shearer, and by whence I mean Newcastle. So, yes, there may be some regional bias to my review. Deal with it.
“No Tomorrow” is a very different style of song. If “Burn” was the band doing angry, this is them doing “maudlin, but what the hell – I can make that bouncy”. Part life-affirming fist-pumper, part singalong chorus, this is big venue material. Boy Jumps Ship seem to be all about the song, so the likes of guitar solos are present but not over-long such as the one herein. A quick breather for some air-strumming then back to the shouting. Great stuff.
You can check out “Lost & Found” below so I’m not going to go into great detail when you can sample its dirty toe-tapping tones for yourself. “Turn Up The Radio” for some reason had me thinking “Wildhearts” within the opening seconds and there really is no higher praise. The choral refrain lives up to the hype and makes this one of the best tracks on the album.
“We Are The Rebels” took a little while to grab me until the lo-fi chorus and few bars of guitar immediately after it. A grower, this one, methinks. It’s followed by a punky number, “Make You Proud”. The shouty intro changes rapidly into an up-tempo number that doesn’t let up until the final note fades out. Overall quite a gentle and uplifting song that still has a kick to it.
The jangly “Under Your Skin” gives way to the more emotive “Shattered”, another song that took me a listen or two to get into… but which was well worth it. The pre-chorus is just superb. “Night Stories” is acoustic for the first half and an interesting departure from the rest of the album. Sounding very much like it was recorded in a bedroom with a bit of echo (before the electric stuff kicks in), it’s an interesting experiment that works. I think I’d actually like to hear the guys do a full acoustic number based on this.
The absolute belter that is the aptly-named “Hell” is next which doesn’t let up from beginning to end. It’s pretty much the opposite of “Night Stories” in of tempo and temperament – bouncy, loud, and brash. “The Best Is Yet To Come” is the kind of stuff that Bowling For Soup could come up with and has a wonderfully bouncy chorus that by rights should have any dancefloor begging for its life as an entire audience pretend it’s a trampoline.
All good things come to an and and Wake Up hits a red light with… erm… “Redlight”. It’s one of those songs that you can just tell is rounding an album off. It’s got that “yeah, but skip back to track one and we can do it all again” feel to it. More importantly, you’ll want to.
We’re catching Patent Pending in Glasgow on Sunday night and rest assured we’ll be there for these guys! Really looking forward to it, and I urge you to make sure you check them out too. If you can’t make the Patent Pending dates then they guys will be headlining some shows of their own in May:
Sun 1st May – York Fibbers
Mon 2nd May – Liverpool Arts Club
Tues 3rd May – Glasgow Stereo
Wed 4th May – Manchester Gullivers
Thurs 5th May – Birmingham Academy 3
Sat 7th May – Tunbridge Wells Forum
Sun 8th May – St Albans Horn
Mon 9th May – Southampton ers
Tues 10th May – London Barfly
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