NEWS
EVENTS
Jake Bugg – Taste It EP
Indie | Thursday 2nd August 2012 | Osh
Heralded as the new messiah of rock ‘n’ roll by the usually plastic Radio 1, you’d be forgiven for being initially a bit sceptical of Jake Bugg. From a purely aesthetic viewpoint, he looks like a Last Shadow Puppets body double, with his Miles Kane hair and an equally dark, buttoned up trench coat. However even just from the cover of his major breakthrough single, ‘Lightning Bolt’, there were clues that this self-styled troubadour was something a bit different. The Dylanesque stare of petulance, the cigarette that would make family-friendly fake folk ‘artists’ like Ed Sheeran choke on their coco pops. Even before you hear him sing, you’d have to say, the kid’s got attitude.
Fast forward a couple of months and Bugg’s career is rattling along at the same break-neck speed as ‘Lightning Bolt’. The song is a ram shackling slice of red hot rock ‘n’ roll that made everything in its path sound so unauthentic, so rootless. With his album due in September, the justified hype around the eighteen year old is reaching fever pitch. The whole country wants a bit of Bugg, but as his recently released Taste It EP hints, maybe Bugg doesn’t want the whole country just yet.
The title song, ‘Taste It’ puts Bugg’s reservations clear, framed around a kind of blues shuffle that’s not too dissimilar from ‘Lightning Bolt’ or previous single ‘Trouble Town’. Talking of his home town, he says “It’s nothing in your eyes. It should be easy, but it’s hard to leave”, which perhaps just puts into perspective how daunting a future we’re pinning on a man who’s barely just stopped being a boy.
The music itself however continues to be conversely mature, with high octane folk rock transitioning to soft skiffle so naturally it sounds as if he’s been doing this for 50 years. The driving bass, key changes and understated harmonies of ‘Kentucky’ pays major homage to Johnny Cash at his best, but chucks in the sort of electrifying guitar solo that is fast becoming a Bugg trademark.
‘Love Me The Way You Do’ delves further into country with the addition of a subtle but beautiful steel pedal guitar, which automatically lends a further sense of authenticy to Bugg’s sound, as if it needs it. The last track, ‘Green Man’ is perhaps more akin to The Doors, though it has a more contemporary feel than the other tracks. If you didn’t know it was Bugg for instance, his voice is a dead ringer for Alex Turner’s and the organ isn’t too dissimilar to something from the Arctic Monkey’s second album, which is no bad thing.
If all this sounds like the young prodigy’s drawing too heavily on his influences however, he certainly isn’t. Bugg’s mixed feelings about leaving Nottingham to chase stardom are woven into any lyrics that sound a tad pastiche (‘meet me at the railroad’ etc.), which lends them that crucial personal touch. More importantly, along with his vocals and guitar work, it also ensures the songs are tied together in his own style, as opposed to just sounding like they’ve been plucked randomly from his admirable record collection.
If ‘Lightning Bolt’ caused people to label Bugg as the new Dylan, or at least someone who sounds like him, then the Taste It EP is ultimately just asking us to take a step back, get to know him and let him take his time. If anything, the EP’s clear country roots might make him more comparable to Neil Young, but to do so is to miss the point. The kid’s got plenty of time ahead of him to be the saviour of rock n roll, to be the next ‘insert superstar here’. Before he does though, let’s just let him be Jake from Nottingham a little bit longer, we’re going to owe him that much.
by Alex Bellotti
