If you could bottle the brashness on the five tracks from this EP by The Jenkinses you’d have a product to bring lasting peace to the Middle East, send a man to Mars and restore hair to Peter Garrett’s head. All considered impossible before now.
The Jenkinses are a two-guitar four-piece from Brussels, full of grizzled veterans from Belgian bands like Contingent, Nervous Shakes, Vice Barons and Wild Ones. Only Nervous Shakes are familiar to me and they were great. The exception to the grizzled descriptor is guitarist Juliette Drumel, who’s the other guitarist-vocalist James Neligan’s better half. Juliette gets her own picture on the inside of the digipak. Happy wife, happy life, right James?
“Langered” - that's an Irish term for drunk - see, I like ‘em already - is the band’s second release, the first eponymous EP presumably being physical product when it came out four years ago, but now only available digitally. So how's it sound?
On two of the five tracks they sound like mid-period Clash.
Say what?
Yes, “3 Down” could have been at home on “Give ‘Em Enough Rope” (except it’s better produced) and “Such a Clown” has a slight whiff of “Lost In The Supermarket” about it. But don;t be so quick to stereotype: “Cheesy Speech” has The Jenkinses throwing around country licks like a bunch of farmers on a moonshine hayride, in the style of the Supersuckers. “That Was My House” is a surly, steely rocker. Variety is the spice of life. If you hadn't worked it out yet, stylistically speaking, this is one hard band to pin down.
The Jenksinses throw around all sorts of influences in their bio - too many to list. Let’s just say “Langered” is one super solid slice of garage-grown rock and roll. The guitarists can both play. JP Neligan’s voice has a slight Jello Biafra quality to it. You couldn’t wedge a wafer between the playing of bassist VInnie "The Enforcer" D'Aguanno and drummer Daniel Wang, the latter also responsibe for production.
Your best bet is to make a beeline for Bandcamp and clap ears on it for yourself. Ordering is only a couple of clicks away after that. Calling what we call "chips" "frites" as the Belgians do might not make much sense, but that previous statement does.
3/4
