Andrew Jackson Jihad – Christmas Island

What do Fake Problems, Gogol Bordello, The Gaslight Anthem, and Title Fight all have in common?  SideOneDummy Records signed each after becoming underground punk flagships; each SideOneDummy label debut became a point of maturation; and each released some of their most beloved tunes with the label.  It’s been a long time coming, but one of punk’s most coveted acts is finally making the move.  Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Andrew Jackson Jihad to the SideOneDummy Records family.

After spending the better part of a decade under the wing of garage-based distro label Asian Man Records, boisterous Phoenix, Arizona folk-punk quartet Andrew Jackson Jihad has made the next step; and it’s a big one.  The group’s evolution from the stripped down acoustic rage of People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People to the fleshed out full band feel of Knife Man continues with the carefully composed coming of age defining their fifth full length, Christmas Island.  Christmas Island marks a radical departure for Andrew Jackson Jihad; this is an all or nothing moment – a leap of faith from safety into the abyss in which Andrew Jackson Jihad pole-vaults firmly over any self-doubt and produces the album that fans didn’t know they wanted.

Built around front man Sean Bonnette’s razor sharp tongue and witty torrent of abstract pop culture references, the band floods their sound with moving keyboards, buzzing reverb, seeping distortion and raw emotion heightened by Christmas Island’s most dramatic departure, a ponderous tempo.  While the band is careful to keep the album moving forward, songs like “Coffin Dance” sound more suited for a funeral than an iPod.  Perhaps inspired by the passing of Bonnette’s late grandfather (perhaps not), the song marries images of immense love (“everyone has a future, everyone has a soul, everyone has a heart, they have control”) with the sadness of departure (“I’m gonna miss this place, I’m gonna miss its face, just like a vein inside my heart”) in moments of lyrical lucidity.  Honest to a T, Andrew Jackson Jihad expands emotions in the cautiously playfully acoustic piece “Getting Naked And Playing With Guns” and dramatic waves of rolling drums that elevate “I Wanna Rock Out In My Dreams” to podium speech intensity.

Of course many songs also pick up the tempo and feature Andrew Jackson Jihad’s trademark obscurity and informed randomness.  Upon first play “Temple Grandin” may seem like the wild rant of a madman rejecting the cushion of modern mortality with colourful references to Stevie Wonder, Hellen Keller and Temple Grandin.  But in fact the final repeated phrase, “find a nicer way to kill it,” becomes an album-wide theme recurring in spirit and explicitly revisited in “Temple Grandin Too.”  Without direct description, Andrew Jackson Jihad references Temple Grandin as the modern architect of bovine slaughterhouses (her methods are responsible for calming cattle in their final moments), and exposes this parallel with our own lives as we complacently navigate the deceptively cruel world in which we live.

The message of acceptance becomes a big one and is strongly echoed in tracks like “Kokopelli Face Tattoo” and “Angel Of Death.”  For the former Bonnette sings anxiously of the deadly jobs that must be done, like that of a “drug induced heart attack” or “baby killing Cadillac,” all the while stating that “I know my place.”  During the latter the band explores seemingly trivial objects like “the Kool-Aid stains on the mouth of a kid whose name is most likely Cody” that give way to descriptions of grief and abandonment.  The upright bass thumping and mandolin strumming “Deathlessness” offers a glimmer of hope in the realization, “how can I live without ever knowing the beauty of forgiveness,” but in the context of Christmas Island, it is just that: hope. 

Made every bit stronger by Christmas Island’s fluctuating pace and experimental drive, Andrew Jackson Jihad has passed the point of no return.  Christmas Island is a thematically dense album that will reward listeners more with each passing listen and will inevitably set the new benchmark for which this once humble folk-punk troupe will be measured.  Andrew Jackson Jihad could have continued with the status quo and fans would have been happy.  By pushing the envelope they have reconfirmed their passion and commitment and made the album that everyone will be talking about for years to come.  Change is good.