Jet - Shine On
(2006)

Review by Sean Lynch

The inevitable second album. Love it or hate it, the boys from Jet are surely going to be sweating over the response to "Shine On", the follow up to the massive 2003 debut album "Get Born" which sold over 2.5 million copies, with the pressure building with every passing second.

It's such a difficult position really. If you try and change the sound too much from the first album, people will complain and your fan base will divert to another pop-rock band. If you stick with the formula and stay the same, you're fan base will divert to another pop-rock band that shows a bit of imagination. 

It's a lose/lose situation a lot of the time.

So, at the end of the day, you just have to forget everything that has come before it - sit down, chuck "Shine On" in the CD player and see if your legs starts tapping. And you know what - if my Nan was still around, she would most certainly claim this one to be a "Downright Toe Tapper".

For "Shine On" to deliver, all that needed to be done was to create a few boppy/ballsy rock tracks that could happily be played on another iTunes ad, used during a montage for the footy finals, something you can pretend to play drums on the car steering wheel with and perhaps something that would fit in perfectly at a drunken BBQ with the boys. And the first single Put Your Money where Your Mouth Is succeeds on all counts. 

It's got the killer hook, it's got the build up and it's got the pay off chorus - it's Are You Gonna Be My Girl tweaked just enough to be considered new, and it works.

The album's opening and closing track All You Have To Do is reminiscent of sections of the "Sgt Peppers" album with a slight nod to Oasis' All Around The World, in that it essentially builds to nothing - but is catchy none the less. King's Horses has some clever word play and uses of some old nursery rhymes to work its lyrical magic and proves that Chris Cester has inherited the smoother vocals of the brothers, while Holiday gives Nic a chance to show that he has some of the better rock vocals in the industry at the present.

Shiny Magazines has a definite Beatles vibe to it, while Shine On has some emotional depth, largely due to it being written by Nic in order to comfort his family after his father's death (rumoured to have been recorded in one, largely emotional, take).

There does seem to be a few lull points, but what album doesn't have them these days, and there's enough genuine tune and melody to most of the ballads to keep the album vibe flowing positively.

Brothers Nic and Chris Cester are in fine form as a writing/singing duo here, sharing more similarities with the Gallagher brothers every day. In fact, one of the most common criticisms you will find being written about "Shine On" is that it's got a startlingly similar sound to the Oasis clan, and even moreso, The Beatles "Revolver". But really, what's wrong with that? Jet are making the songs Oasis should be making, the same way Justin Timberlake is making the songs Michael Jackson should be making - because, for whatever reason, Noel G. and Micheal J. just aren't doing it themselves anymore.

I tell you now, I'd much prefer to have some great Brit pop songs than not - and I don't care who writes them!

RATING: 4 out of 5