The Van Jets "Electric Soldiers"

The Van Jets - I don't know why
The Van Jets - Electric Soldiers
The Van Jets - Their Glances

 Once again, I’m back on The Van Jets bandwagon. I am here today to talk about their first album, “Electric Soldiers”. Granted, it’s been a few years since this puppy has hit the shelves of record stores, but I don’t give a damn.

This record is garage rock at its finest. The lead guitar on most of the tracks is the standout instrument. If I knew anything about guitarmanship, I’d probably blab on and on about what the guitarist does, and why it works so well. But because I have no fucking idea as to what he is doing, I’m just going to say this: the guitar licks make you want to melt into your seat. They are fuzzy, but not so distorted it feels like your listening to metal. Just fuzzy enough that you will want to drop your jaw and crap your pants in amazement of the sound of the guitar. However, not every track is fuzzed out garage rock. “What’s Going On?#” features a mix of melodic guitar riffige with a pinch of 70’s hard rock. Almost reminiscent of a Zepplin tune, but not a complete rip off. Tracks that stick to the fuzz are “I Don’t Know Why”, “ Johnny Winter”, “Electric Soldiers”, and, well, just about every track come to think of it (minus the hybrid “Whats Going On?#”). As I mentioned in a previous post, the vocals are damn near perfect; no screaming, no whining, solid pitch. The drumming is pretty straightforward. Standard tempos throughout, some use of toms here and there on a couple of songs. Nothing to make your average drum fanatic lose his shit over, but nothing too weak either. The bass does a good job of backing up the guitarist. This guy is no Les Claypool, but then again who the hell is these days.

I would probably want to listen to this album while driving on a long road trip or drinking. The album is pretty feel good. At least that’s the sort of vibe the musicianship gives off; the lyrics themselves could be about something utterly demonic/depressing and I would have no idea because I hardly pay attention to lyrics. But I digress. All I know is that if I walked into a party and I heard this album playing I’d be one happy camper.

In the end, “Electric Soldiers” deserves an eight out of ten. Plenty of rock and roll to go around for everyone and their grandmother.