John Davis
JINX
Lost in Ohio
Luck has nothing to do with JINX, a collection of songs that initially had Superdrag — longtime partners with John Davis in shoegazing power-pop glory — written all over them. Unable to get on the same page together in the studio, they parted ways on a project that, especially in hindsight, made perfect sense for a heartfelt, confessional solo album.
Wedding bells may soon chime for Davis and his fiancé, often guilty of saying the same thing simultaneously, as couples do. Did someone say, “JINX?” Davis just can’t stay quiet, though. Left to his own devices, torn between bouts of depressed melancholy and elated euphoria, he hooked up with a handpicked father-and-son rhythm section for a powerful, melodic love letter writ large across skyscraping, crunchy guitar-pop that swerves and bends to dizzying effect. Which sounds a lot like the modus operandi of Superdrag, admittedly, with some subtle differences — the lack of cynicism being one of them.
Not as cinematic as Superdrag’s epic In the Valley of Dying Stars, but more in keeping with the silvery, careening Regretfully Yours, a more straightforward album that yielded the defiant MTV Buzz Bin anthem “Sucked Out,” JINX skids slowly into the tight turns of the languid, celestial opener “The Future,” a woozy trip to therapy in which a drawling Davis concedes, “Sometimes I’m a bag of broken glass / What am I supposed to do with that.” Just as immense and dense, the dark, swirling “Already Drowned” is heavily medicated, lost at sea and spiraling downward, with Davis tied to anchor of misery. An expansive, bittersweet “Cold Advice” waits below in the murky depths of his heart.
Salvation comes in the divine form of roaring, supersonic jets of curving guitars, crackling with distortion and sent soaring heavenward, as Davis is also joyful about his good fortune, having finally found what seems to something true. “Please Be My Love” couldn’t possibly be a purer expression of romantic yearning, while the similarly upbeat “Wildfire Love” gets caught up in a tangle of passion and melody that only The Lemonheads could unravel.
In bashing out the driving, energetic “In Between the Waves,” Davis and company indulge their punk-rock urges, while “Take My Brains Out” sighs sweetly and “Indifferent Stars” easily shifts from widescreen awe into dynamic propulsion. And then there’s “I’m Sorry,” an open, honest ballad in search of forgiveness that’s free of guile, just like the rest of JINX.
