The Jake Leg Stompers latest record, Guaranteed Absolutely Pure, is a throwback experience designed to look and feel like music written and recorded in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
The album art and text should bring up some fiber of nostalgia buried in the hearts of some ?unknown’ demographic of listener.?
Instrumentation in songs varies from tuba, upright bass, ukulele, acoustic guitar, musical saws, fiddles, kitchen pots and mandolins.
Although listening to Guaranteed Absolutely Pure is fun, it didn’t quite strike an emotional chord with me other than its constant happy-go-lucky vibe.
Listening to songs like the album opener “My Four Reasons,” with its tuba, harmonica, kazoo, pots and pans, and general slaphappy rhythm, just make you want to smile. With the exception of a few slower bluesy songs, like “Why Don’t You Do Right,” the songs hold true to this happy-go-lucky vibe.
The recording was obviously intended to capture the simple beauty of a band just playing live. It is nearly all in mono, and gives me the impression everything was recorded through one microphone in a single room.
Compared to modern stereo recordings, the album leaves lots of stones unturned. However, in this case I think it’s a good thing.
I like how you can hear an actual musical balance being achieved, although sometimes the vocals are slightly too loud or too quiet.
Or, like in track 12, “St. James Infirmary,” the musical saw (really old-school instrument) sounded like it was some kind of crazy lady with a whooping cough. The mix was obviously designed in a way that placed more importance on blending of sounds than on any given sound as an individual part.
In that sense, the album delivers what it promises. It “revives the styles and also captures the sonorities of pre-war American roots music.”
The melodies are clear and catchy. The songs are all hook-based writing style (all of them are covers of old traditional songs) with very simplistic words and structures.? None of them are presented as anything different though.
Everything comes across as natural and well done. It’s one of the few albums that ignores the now-common standard of turning everything up as loud as possible
?As a collection of songs, they all fit very well together. The dynamics between tracks and internally in the tracks have an excellent flow throughout the album. They left me feeling oddly satisfied, although the rendition of “When The Saints Go Marching In,” as a hidden track seemed a bit unnecessary and irritated me a bit.
If you are looking to add cutting-edge progressive or modern music to your collection, this is definitely not where you want to look. If you are looking for an album that gives a good vibe and truly represents a band’s live natural sound, this is where it’s at.
The only thing more that I could want from these guys is for them to take their feel and sound and push themselves to create some brand new music.
