Jets Under Fire

Anyone that loses their job and decides to be a professional musician for the remainder of their days, in my book, is a cool cat. That doesn't mean that every striving musician out there with a day job should give it up for the "cool cat" title, because it is possible to lead two lives. That's what Jason Poe is doing.

Well, leading two lives in the musical world anyway. Jason Poe is the frontman of the Austin, TX band, The Professional Americans. However, his side and solo project, Jets Under Fire, is the real gem behind his musical mind. While Professional Americans sound something like Fall Out Boy, his solo work is piano driven with specs of Ambulance LTD and Coldplay-esque influences here and there. His first official release came out a few years back to a warm welcome by local fans and has been picking up steam on both MySpace and purevolume (2,000+ plays a day). With a fanbase that is continuing to expand, I can only hope that his Ben Gibbard routine of having two successful bands results in Poe sticking with his side project. Give him a listen and you'll probably agree. - I Guess I'm Floating Music Blog

Austin's Jets Under Fire have released an inviting, smooth and easy indie rock-pop album. The disc's a mostly mellow collection of 11 feel-good tracks, a comfortable and easy listen.

Kicking off the disc is "Broken Parts." It's mellow, an easy introduction to the tracks which are to follow. "We've been filled with broken parts/ you know and I know/ we've been broken from the start," sings Jason Poe (vocals, guitar, keys). Up next is the catchy and high-energy "Where Do We Go From Here," ready made for the pivotal scene in the next big romantic comedy. After the sweet and slowed down "All the Sad Songs" (with Poe's gentle and seemingly effortless falsetto -- nice) is the radio-ready "Just Like the Cold." You simply can't listen to this song without falling head over heels; it's that captivating. The guitar line alone will stick in your head for days, and you'll soon find yourself humming along to the refrain.

"Emerald Eyes" has a bit of a rustic feel to it, partially because the vocals seem rootsier, more universal. The ethereal falsetto of "Circles," combined with its hook-y refrain, make this easily one of the top songs on the disc. Up next, "The End" is also uber-catchy, a foot tapper if ever there was one. "Ooh ooh ooh"s kick off the song, itself accented by handclaps and snappy guitar work. "We want something to make us feel/ we want something to let us heal/ we want something to make us real," sings Poe wisely.

"My love is poison/ my love is blind," goes the refrain on "Moonlight"; following "Ships on the Sea," the mellow "Your Own Hands" closes out the disc with a gentle goodnight.

Rounding out this trio are Todd Meador (bass, keys, vocals) and Corbin Peterson (drums, vocals). Though Poe's voice is often middling and grows somewhat repetitive, the disc as a whole is an inviting and enjoyable listen. And, really, with songs as good as "Just Like the Cold" and "The End," it's totally worth more than a few spins. - Playback STL - Laura Hamlett

If your music collection is mainly comprised of artists you discovered by watching Vh1 and episodes of One Tree Hill, then Jets Under Fire’s Kingdoms will fit nicely between Keane and The Fray in your CD case. If you don’t consider Coldplay one of the greatest bands in the world, though, Kingdoms’ piano-driven rock will seem lacking. While it is well crafted, it lacks the experimentation, emotion and sincerity that make innovative music so appealing in the first place. If you’re one of these listeners, this CD won’t do much but take up valuable space on your ipod.

This critique doesn’t negate a simple fact, though: Jets Under Fire will be huge if the WB ever get its hands on a copy.
-Sj Brown

READER COMMENTS:

chris | Mar 31, 2008
you must not have listened to the same album I did, I can’t take it out of my cd player

Bobby B | Apr 1, 2008
It’s not really even a negative review. it doesn’t knock and even points out that it is a well-made record, just emphasizes that it will appeal to people who like “radio friendly” bands and probably not to people whose I-pods are packed with more avante-garde or experimental fare.

Luci | Apr 1, 2008
I definitely liked the way this review started; however I tend to disagree with everything beyond the first sentence. I’m not entirely sure that the album is quite as radio friendly as The Fray album. The lyrics and melodies aren’t quite up for competition with The Fray…
The album is quite Ecclesiastical(Kingdoms Rise, Kingdoms Fall…), not necessarily as happy go lucky, trite, or cheezy as most top 40 hits and was written with as much passion as someone can muster after a very difficult year. If you listen to the lyrics to By Your Own Hands (track 11), you might hear more passion than you expected.
To each his own, of course - but I have to say go see a live show - it will change your view of the fervor of the entire thing. - Soundcheck Magazine - SJ Brown

What is it about Austin and epic rock music? Explosions in the Sky burst (sorry) onto the scene a few years ago with a distinctive combination of tenderness and majesty. Add to the list of blue-ribbon bands playing in this general style: Meridianwest, Ghosts of the Russian Empire and, now, Jets Under Fire, whose “Kingdoms” I’ve now heard about a million times. I’m sure there are others, but I can’t get enough of them. A better music critic than I could tell you why the epic sound is conquering the city one recording and live concert at a time. - Austin 360.com

"The indie trio specializes in big choruses and Brit-inspired guitar-pop, and we predict mainstream success for the band’s forthcoming full length debut, Kingdoms." - City At Night Nashville Feb.08

Jason Poe (from the amazing and completely underrated band - The Professional Americans) shows us a slightly more candid, personal look into his song writing abilities. Simple music, melodies that connect and intimate words are laced throughout The Winter EP. Impressively enough, Mr. Poe shows us just how talented he is by playing each and every instrument on the songs. For fans of Coldplay, Ed Harcourte and David Bazan - Ryan Sims (Purevolume.com, Virb.com)

What you will hear—and soon—is The Whitest Light, the new name the group formerly known as The Happy Endings, recently adopted. The guys plan to release their Bob Rock-produced album, Losing Generation, which they grappled away from J Records, sometime in early 2008 under the new moniker. The name, according to guitarist Micky Hardy, who we reached in L.A., is a tribute to Jason Poe, from the band Jets Under Fire. Poe is one of Hardy and lead vocalist Brannon Powers favorite artists, and The Whitest Light is one of his most notable songs. - GO Magazine Nov. 2007 Matt Lemmon

Finally, I get to one of the coolest CD covers in a while -- the castles that identify the theme of Jets Under Fire's "Kingdoms." Yeah, these guys are confrontational but on another plane from that of Fluoxetine -- "Kingdoms rise, kingdoms fall," after all. Jason Poe came down from Springfield, Missouri, a couple of years ago with his band, "The Professional Americans" (Jets meanwhile had begun as a solo project that turned into much more after the PA's broke up). This is good music -- and by the way the band plays May 9th at Stubbs on a bill with Sounds Under Radio and Ars Supernova. [And, yes, I am not quite sure who is still in the band.]

Poe says of himself that the past two years have been the hardest in his young life -- and that these songs reflect the joys and struggles of life that led him to conclude that, "we're a broken people, and we feel it. There is no quick fix, just this hammering process called life." Song 1 is "Broken Parts," in which Poe asks, "If love is the key, tell me why don't we set the whole world free?" Song 2, "Where Do We Go from Here?," asks "where do we go when we're broken? Where do we go to feel awake?" "All the Sad Songs" reminds me of Seth Woods and the Sad Accordians -- "Why do we sit on these bad solutions? Why do we think we are wise?" After all it is the sad songs that remind us of the good times, and the good times make us sad through the hard times. "Just Like the Cold" is so singable, an anthemic song to sway arm in arm along to -- maybe this is why Jets sometimes gets misidentified as Brit pop! [but more like Craig Marshall].

"My body is tired, my mind is not the same, been broken (there's that word again!) for days." That's the opening lines of "The Writing on the Wall," a song about fading out and fear of failure. I could write more about the other songs, but just get to a show and see for yourself. - Flanfire Blog - Duggan Flanakin

Thursday, May 08, 2008
Jason Poe, leader of the Austin band Jets Under Fire, is a Christian, but he doesn't believe in Christian music.
"I really hate the term 'Christian music,' " Poe says. "The word Christian is a noun, not a adjective. I don't think music has a soul that can be saved. We play music. I am a Christian. That's it."
Even if you didn't know he was a Christian, one had to admire his and his band's willingness to remain cool and good-natured at their April 17 performance at Progress Coffee, one of the most technically disastrous sets I've ever seen.
Nothing seemed to work. The band — Poe, drummer Corbin Petersen and bassist Todd Meador — would play for a minute and the sound would cut out. They'd play, then the sound would cut out. (Let's hope this will not be the case when the band plays Friday inside at Stubb's.)
Poe laughs when talking about it. "As far as we could tell, the bass on the keyboard seemed to be overpowering the little speaker and overpowering the little system. We would turn the keyboard up, and it would crash everything."
But then, it seems a weird little miracle that Poe is playing rock 'n' roll at all. He grew up in Springfield, Mo., the son of devout Christians. "Nothing but Christian music for a while there. Then my dad brought home an old Boston CD, which I clung to," he says. By his senior year in high school, he had started to write songs and play in bands.
Jets Under Fire started as a side project, an offshoot of his main act, the Professional Americans. He knocked out two brief CD-EPs of piano-based rock under the Jets name before the Americans relocated to Austin in 2005.
"(The Professional Americans) kinda maxed out what we could do in Missouri," Poe says. "We had a friend who came down and started a church plant two years before, so we decided to move here and help them out." The church, the Southwest Family Fellowship, thrived and meets at the Barton Creek Square AMC theater.
But Professional Americans did not, and was gone within a year, leaving Poe free to concentrate full time on Jets Under Fire and its American brand of British-sounding rock. (Poe doesn't really deny the influence of such large-emotion rockers as the Verve, Radiohead or Travis.) The band released its debut full-length, "Kingdoms," in March.
Poe says the title refers to the impermanence of life, one of the most basic human questions. "We build whatever you want, but in the end, you're going to die," he says,

"Kingdoms rise and fall."


- Austin American Statesman - Joe Gross

Jets Under Fire is piano-heavy indie pop; a band that knows when to make crashing waves of noise, and when to fall back and let vocalist Jason Poe’s expressive voice carry them. - 101X Chillville