After a stint of heavy touring and little new music, Detroit’s Jamaican Queens have released a follow up to their excellent 2013 debut, Wormfood. The electro-rock trio’s recently released Bored + Lazy EP is a more than worthy addition to their brief discography.
The EP’s titular track starts things off with its slow, glitzy drag and fragile robo-vocal work. “Bored + Lazy” continues the band’s success at blending gloomily infectious synth hooks, hard, danceable beats and dark-if-not-violent themes. The chorus’s hollow inflection narcissistic pleas were rendered even more chilling by The Right Brothers, who directed the corresponding music video. The song’s effect is a bit similar to reading Less Than Zero; absolutely captivating and yet cold and unsettling.
The other new track on the EP, “Joe,” opens with an ominous, black buzz, a street protest stomp-beat and sharp, whirling vocals. Eventually a score of other percussive blips and digital beeps grow around the groove, flourishing until the track cascades into psychedelic acrobatics. The trip blinks to stop at around the two minute mark, leaving room for a gorgeous, sparse piano melody and a candid lullaby. More bloops and high-hats then fill in these blanks, carrying on blissfully a while before one final fit of neon swirling and dance party shenanigans.
Bored + Lazy rounds out with three pleasantly different takes on the title track. The first is a Detroit/Chicago collaboration with Kevin and Dantiez Saunderson; the result being a 5+ minute house jam. The “Coyote Clean Up’s Bedroom Eyes Dub” is a whispery, winding remix that feels almost at risk of fading away.
The EP ends on a super high with the “Nick Speed Remix,” which features a performance from Dopehead, a member of Detroit prog-rap collective Bruiser Brigade. This incarnation starts as a throbbing hip-hop romp featuring Jamaican Queens’ robotic chorus over remixed blips. After a brief futuristic rap-rock interlude it falls back to that same drag from the original, with more ufo-glamour. and eventually paves way for an awesome giddy-digital-looping solo that sort of drops the mic to finish.
You can purchase a copy of Bored + Lazy (digital and vinyl) via the group’s Bandcamp page. The band also has a brief southern tour coming up as they make their way to Austin for SXSW! Check out the full schedule below:
UPCOMING SHOWS:
3/12 – Springfield, MO – Outland
3/14 – Denton, TX – 35 Denton
3/16 – Houston, TX – Walters Downtown
3/17 – SXSW
3/18 – SXSW
3/19 – SXSW
3/20 – Hot Springs, AR – VOV Fest
3/23 – Nashville, TN – Spring Water
3/24 – Knoxville, TN – Pilot Light
3/25 – Asheville, NC – The Mothlight
3/26 – Atlanta, GA – Mammal Gallery
3/28 – Athens, GA – Slingshot
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