It is somewhere
around the middle of this albums second track Close The Door that you should
find yourself being swept up in the scintillating inventiveness that is Jasurp,
the latest release from Hampshire duo Damn Robot!
Made up of Rob (Inachus, Oceanus) and Tom Honey (Good Weather for an Airstrike), Damn Robot! started life as a creative offshoot to their respective current projects and gave the brothers a different avenue to experiment with a more hybrid sound, which finds them dabble with a wide plethora of genres from ambient and metal to post rock and trip hop. On the whole this bold experimentation works extremely well. Tracks such as the aforementioned Close the Door while splintered with remnants from the Bristol Sound of the late nineties still offers enough of a uniqueness and freshness to make it musically stand alone. The metal tinged rumble of A Drop in the Ocean and the Orb-like ambience of I’m Trying to Freeze and (Good Morning) Electric Boogaloo, are further commanding evidence of this brilliantly executed experimentation.
The only real slight throughout the records extensive running time comes with the at times overly indulgent The Gentlemen Callers, which seems to sit quite uncomfortably with what is being endeavoured on the rest of Jasurp. This said, the duo revert straight back to harmonious form on its follow up and the albums closer This Things I Believe (Can We Accept That?), a joyful mesh of horns, silken guitars and wistful vocals.
According to the band the main inspiration behind Jasurp comes from life in general with elements of the brothers diverse tastes in music and film dotted across the albums spine in good measure and this manifests itself on the eclectic mix found within. Overall Jasurp is a clever and bold piece of music making and shows a band not willing to constrain themselves by the so called norm.
