Jump Up

AMG Review of Jump Up

John Vallier
All Music Guide

Jump Up is the second CD release from the Japanese rock-electronica quartet Supercar. Its eleven songs have English titles, though their lyrics seem to be for the most part sung in Japanese. The album's first cut, "Walk Slowly," begins with the sound of a phonographic needle dropping onto a record and then proceeds with a processed melodic ostinato that is somewhat reminiscent of the introduction on The Who's "Baba O'Riley." The next song on the CD, "Sunday People," is built upon a sampled drum loop and visits a passage in the chorus that sounds very similar to one used by Echo and the Bunnymen during the 1980's. Supercar, which consists of Nakako on guitar and vocals, Miki on bass and vocals, Junji on guitar, and Kodai on drums, has a fondness for carefully distorted guitars and makes use of sparse samples and ear-catching keyboard parts. The slight hiss and crackle of a needle threading its way along an LP remain present through the entirety of Jump Up. The CD's final track, "Daydreamer," is a four-note ballad that nostalgically fades into this once all too familiar form of white noise.