CD review: The Jealous Kind [EP]

Here’s the skinny on The Jealous Kind, a solid four-song Indie / Pop / Folk-Rock EP that was released in April under the auspices of Nashville producer Stephen Leiweke. When I first popped in this CD, my initial thought was: It is a good month for local music, because this was the second CD of six and both were more than good -- they were almost great. These guys are like a 2010 version of Pearl Jam et al. (And they own the ’90s-meets-tomorrow sound. As they say on their myspace page: “The duo makes a bow to ’90s-era bands on which their friendship was founded, with a sound … [that is] familiar, but at the same time, new.”) Thankfully, they do have a sound of their own and it is one that can be counted as up-to-the-minute enough, and on top of all that they fall, as I said, squarely in the good-to-great category of musicians. But that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly the problem with this CD, if there were going to be a problem here. There are just so many bands in the good-to-great class these days that you sincerely have to hit me -- and everyone else -- over the head with something else, something just out of this world, to really make a difference and get me on the horn telling my friends, neighbors, colleagues, Twitter acquaintances and others to check you out, get your CD, see you live. This is their debut EP, so that may come down the road effortlessly enough. The guys behind The Jealous Kind, Josh Queen of Colorado and Dave Wright of Tennessee, again according to myspace, “crossed musical paths in 2002 when touring the Southeast with their own respective projects. They became fast friends over shared musical loves and vowed to one day work together.” Fast-forward to 2009, when they were exchanging lyrics, audio and video via email. “They quickly realized they had something special happening and soon teamed up with acclaimed Nashville producer Stephen Leiweke … to bring some of these songs to life,” according to their page. The result is definitely more than worth a listen, and some folks are going to love them and others, myself included, are going to find them squarely in the good-to-great grouping and move on in search of something more squarely in the bone-chilling mix. No doubt there is a pretty good chance that one or more DJs out there will note the good-to-great quality going on here, and the EP could very well make airwaves. And, you guessed it, that’s exactly why everything on the radio sounds like one big good-to-great track. That’s why so much of it sounds the same.

Sounds like: Pearl Jam in 2010; The Jealous Kind duo themselves say their sound is “reminiscent of Toad the Wet Sprocket and Counting Crows”

http://www.thejealouskind.com
http://twitter.com/thejealouskind
http://www.myspace.com/thejealouskind