David Jackel

I cannot describe what this Boston band does to me. They’re snarling, bitter, psychologically battered glam-influenced rock. They make my toes curl. Lead vocalist David Jackel has a voice that sounds like a pummeling fist one moment and a smooth, sinister, seductive demon the next.

I never saw this one coming. My editor sent me their debut, Blood Red Moon, mixed in with a bunch of other CDs she wanted reviewed. The Crush didn’t provide much in the way of a press kit, so I didn’t really know what to expect when I dropped the CD in my stereo and pressed play. The songs kicked their way out of my speakers like a pack of drunken frat boys and proceeded to trash my apartment, shattering my windows and bleeding everywhere.

The Crush has remained one of my top indie favorites ever since, so when they sent me their 2001 follow-up EP Debutante, I ripped it open right there on the sidewalk next to my mailbox like a hungry animal.

Your Irish skin beats like a wound with metal jump-drinks made for you two,
Hungry for another line, another spot, audition nights are
spit-sawed selfish junk parades, then he and she go fake a lay there.
We get tossed out when we go,
Well here we all are on our own too....

I see on their website that they’re also working on a new album. I just know it will be blasting from my car stereo the day the cops chase me down after I snap one night and spray-paint obscenities all over the mayor’s office.
- Indie-Music.com

They’re back. About time. I was having withdrawal.

Ever since I reviewed The Crush’s debut "Blood Red Moon" a year ago, I’ve been wanting to hear more. This creatively brave and psychologically battered group from Boston has remained in my top three list of indie-music.com favorites. When I saw the package from their MP3 site in my mailbox this afternoon, I tore it open right there on the sidewalk. I brought it in, put it in my CD player, sat back, closed my eyes, hit "play" on the stereo remote, and thought, "Okay guys, thrill me."

The tracks on this EP pack enough power, experimentation, and fascinating imagery to make me (temporarily) forgive the band for only sending me three songs. It’s okay. I’ve got my fix for now. But if this is an indication of what’s coming from their next full-length work, I’m warning the neighbors now. Volume levels will be high. Dogs will whimper. Children will cry. Windows will shatter.

In the first two songs, "Debutante" and "Voyeur," these guys again show their skill of tainting wholesome icons with something raw and sinister. The lovely debutante has Irish skin that "beats like a wound." And in "Voyeur," vocalist David Jackel’s voice takes on the unnerving suave of a mentally disturbed Broadway star as he breathes the word "you" at the start of each line:

You, all thin and unraveling,
You, you’re barely even there,
You, all bones and mascara,
You, you’re just ivory wrapped in hair.

They go on to revive the graphic, insulting bitterness I love them for: "You, you’ll chunk out like your mother. You’ll keep your smile, but the rest with go to her." Later, "Lift the streets, drown the city in asphalt, and piss the posters clean tonight."

Both the music and Jackel’s voice haven’t lost their jagged edges. The lead guitar has a nervous breakdown in its careening solo in "Voyeur." "Debutante" is hard rock with high staccato synthesizer notes on the chorus and a razor blade ending. And as always, Jackel’s voice is dressed in a bloodstained tuxedo.

The final track, "Jon is Gone," is a hypnotic, angry ballad of loss and shame. I liked this one for the inward turn it takes. Instead of lashing out, the singer opens the window to his soul to show the feeling of abandonment. As the song ends, he rages like only he can, "Show us your head, man, if you’re there! Show us all man, if you’re there! Whose side are you on?" He keeps repeating that last line to the end, unforgiving and building the protective wall.
- Indie-Music.com