EP Review: Jumping Out The Window

“The report of my death was an exaggeration.” – Samuel Clemens.

When we last spoke of Jackal, it was with great disappointment at their impending dissolution. 

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came Jumping Out the Window, a sort of softly spoken review of all that could have been if life hadn’t stood in the way. A once more with feeling for the fans.

I’m not here to blow smoke, but the last three albums I had the opportunity to review, Only Everything, Castle in the Air and Sparkle, were some of the best collections of New Zealand music I’ve had blow through my headphones. Jumping Out the Window, a collection of subdued odes to all things mellow, doesn’t stand up to the previous three; it forges its own path.

Experimental, even for psychedelic astronauts such as these, the very nature of their traditional genre being experimentation.

Unlike Sparkle, Jumping Out the Window is less progressively bats**t crazy, and more the most intricate, well written and heartfelt songs in the band’s six album history. 

The Smashing Pumpkins is strong with this one. I know I said that last time, but I mean it in a different way, with a different frame of reference. We’re treading in Adore, American Gothic, Disarm territory here, showing the dynamic nature of the band that was Jackal. They didn’t have to be blowing your ear drums to blow your mind. 

Coming a year since Jackal gracefully bowed out, this album is a welcome surprise and a fitting eulogy to an amazing band, and offers a shred of hope for a future, and I for one will be waiting eagerly.

Jumping Out the Window is available from the Jackal Bandcamp Page.