Album Review: Jagger Holly – DJ Free Europe

Punk power pop trio Jagger Holly, that features former members of The Spastic Hearts, The Johnie 3 and the Hollywood Blondes, released their debut album, DJ Free Europe, earlier this year. The album is available from Swamp Cabbage Records in the USA and Monster Zero Records in Europe, additionally in the US the CD version of the album is available via Outloud! Records with an alternate, and in my view superior, version of the album cover that can be seen adorning this review.

DJ Free Europe kicks off with the high energy punk of Friday Night, from this point you’re in for eleven high energy blasts of authentic punk rock with only a few deviations from this well worn, and well loved, template. There’s a fifties rock ‘n roll vibe incorporated into my personal highlight on DJ Free Europe, And Then She Kissed Me, and there’s the comparatively mellow acoustic number of International Love Song, but other than these two songs this is relentless punk rock that carries on the legacy of the Ramones, you find yourself mentally inserting the 1234 before each track. In keeping with tradition there is a punked up cover included, DJ Free Europe closes with an upbeat punk rock version of the often covered song Some Guys Have All The Luck, and for me the joyous punk rock energy brings new life to a song that was flatlining after being trampled into mediocrity by Rod Stewart and Robert Palmer.

This an album that channels the likes of The Methadones, Teenage Bottlerocket and of course the Ramones, and it does it with style, if you were looking for faults with this album the only one you could accuse Jagger Holly of having is that there’s nothing new, it treads the same ground as the aforementioned bands, but that’s never been a problem for me providing it’s done well, and DJ Free Europe is a damn fine album of punk rock that carries a slight rock n roll twist, whilst it’s not original this is as good an album of straight up no frills power pop tinged punk rock as I’ve heard this year.

DJ Free Europe can be streamed and purchased on CD here (USA) and here (Europe) and it can be downloaded here