Album Review : Mystery Jets - Serotonin
- Written by Jon Fletcher
The more you listen to Mystery Jets’ third full length, the more it feels like Twenty One mark II. Certainly any fans hoping for a return to the shifting sands of 2006’s Making Dens will be sorely disappointed. Album number three, Serotonin, shares the richly populist vein that ran through its predecessor, including a full quotient of sexually charged metaphors. This time around, however, there’s a new component: drugs.
Initially, it’s difficult not to find the fact that the band have named a song – nay, an entire album - after the neurotransmitter linked to ecstasy use, well, just a bit naff. In the song itself, the title is pronounced ‘Sarah Tonin’ – a cheap trick but one the band just about gets away with, in part because of their determination to carry off the girl/drugs metaphor without let up; in part because, at times, they so perfectly capture the small hours cold, one-way ebb of pill taking: “Now it’s faded and I can’t hear what you’re saying / It feels like you’re slipping through my fingers”.
Of course the other thing that rescues this song, and the album overall, is the band’s continuing feel for a good tune. Though the production initially feels a little treble-heavy, particularly on otherwise excellent opener ‘Alice Springs’, almost every track has a sing-along joy that after a few listens is difficult to resist. When the bulk of the music on ‘Show Me The Light’ drops out for the chorus, leaving cow bell percussion, bass and a blinding vocal hook, it’s quite frankly difficult to give a damn about the occasional weak lyric.
As with the bands sophomore offering, Serotonin also brings ample references to sex. Just as the “rubber in the sack” of Twenty One’s ‘Hideaway’ left little to the imagination, so ‘Flash A Hungry Smile’ barely disguises its cheeky sexual references: “Have you heard the birds and bees / Have all caught STDs / I’m begging darling please / I want to see you on your knees.”
Blaine Harrison’s vocals continue to have echoes of 80s pop, but there is far more going on here. Warbling one minute, he can lend his voice a peculiar rasp that is strangely emotive, particularly when laying what are essentially sorrowful lyrics over his band’s jubilant backing, as he does to great effect on ‘Lady Grey’. Musically too, the accessible sounds of Serotonin – as with Twenty One – mask considerable diversity. Rhythms and styles are constantly changing, from the lighter-waving swing of ‘Melt’ to the squalling guitar opening of ‘Waiting On A Miracle’.
The slow build of ‘Lorna Doone’ feels perhaps a little cloying against the shorter, more instantly rewarding tracks on the album, but this is hardly a serious complaint and there is a suspicion that it could grow in much the same way that ‘Behind The Bunhouse’ did on Serotonin’s predecessor. Overall, this album feels as though it picks up pretty much where Twenty One left off, yet without becoming overly familiar or repetitive – a trick many of the band's contemporaries might do well to emulate. There will be those who bemoan the continuing populist direction of the Mystery Jets, but for me, this band deserves all the more credit for transforming their ample talent into such an uplifting, open package. Splendid stuff.