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"New bands almost never live up to the lofty comparisons to other, more seminal bands made by people like me, but that's not gonna stop me from telling you that this self-titled full-length from Tigers Jaw is probably something you'd like if you're into the Get Up Kids or any other ..90s emo band. Just fill in the blank, really. And while Tigers Jaw may be nodding to their influences, they're doing so inconspicuously, offering a fresh take on a genre that should have gone bad years ago.
The band relies heavily on crunchy, mid-tempo instrumentation that's just warm enough to evoke without overdoing it. The driving nature of the opening bars of "The Sun" makes it a great first track, and the deliberately darker, heavier sound of the rest of the song is a bit off-putting at first, but starts to make sense after a few listens. Those dual low/high vocals are a nice touch, too. Ditto for the charmingly discordant "Arms Across America."
Speaking of vocals, they get pretty raw and vulnerable on "Plane vs. Tank vs. Submarine" and "Chemicals," both of which feature some solid guitar work in the form of weeping, goosebump-inducing solos. Strong vocal harmonies and bouncy guitar work carry both "I Saw Water" and "Heat" to heights other bands would have a hard time reaching. The vocals do get a tad sloppy on the uptempo "I Was Never Your Boyfriend," but it's more endearing than distracting.
"Between Your Band and the Other Band" is the magnum opus of this release, a near-five-minute track that runs a gauntlet of different sounds and, by association, emotions. The chord progressions utilized here are simple, but perfect in conveying the somber demeanor of the song. There's also a simple keyboard part that adds an extra layer of warmth underneath the crashing drums (seriously, I don't think I've ever heard more cymbals in one song) and distorted guitars.
Ironically, "Never Saw It Coming" is the token pseudo-acoustic closer, rife with vulnerable, slightly off-key vocals and some gang "whoa"s before the full band kicks in for the final 45 seconds, drums crashing like there's no tomorrow. And since the record ends after that, I guess there isn't.
Tigers Jaw isn't a record that will blow you away with gusts of originality, but for a debut, it's a more accomplished and enjoyable record than many of their contemporaries could ever hope to muster." -Punknews.org, http://www.punknews.org/review/7813
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2008 seems to be a good year for indie and pop punk bands. While there will always be mainstream oriented versions of pop punk (and mainstream rock bands who still try to call themselves indie), the underground scene has been thriving since the year began. This will make it very difficult for fans to truly decide who the best of the best were come December, but I'm willing to bet that Pennsylvania based Tigers Jaw will make quite a few people's lists. Now on their sophomore, self titled album, the group recalls a time when artists such as The Starting Line and Thursday were not quite as mainstream and very lo-fi and indie rock was rejecting some of folk's ideals rather than embracing it. But this isn't to say that the album is dated either, as Tigers Jaw feels both fresh and nostalgic at the same time.
The instrumentals are always focused on simplistic and catchy compositions, but they pull from a wide variety of influences to mask the fact that the riffs are somewhat simple. At times Tigers Jaw sounds like a cross between early pop punk, Weezer, and even a little Fugazi at times. However, don't let that last comparison throw you off as the material on this self titled album is always very melodic and poppy rather than heavy. But Tigers Jaw always brings a lot of energy to the table, something that some of today's pop punk and indie bands just can't do and this makes them so great.
As with just about every group of this type right now, Tigers Jaw makes use of dual vocalists to add melodic harmonies to their music. And like many that have come before them, this works to their advantage. The singers on this album have a lot of passion behind their singing, and their lyrics feel truly genuine. This is certainly music that the average listener could relate to, which is a quality that not all indie bands have right now. Overall, the singing will remind listeners of older bands while still offering enough to feel modern.
Tigers Jaw can't be called "new", but they offer a nice twist on some styles that have not been properly represented by the mainstream in recent years. The result is an album that will have some people running to listen to their 90's pop punk and indie CDs due to a sense of nostalgia, but after they have done that they will surely come back to this release thanks to its addictive melodies. It may be a year full of top notch competition, but Tigers Jaw is another band that you should make room on your shelf for."- Chris Dahlberg, http://www.cosmosgaming.com/articles.php?id=1604&articletype=review
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"Not to be confused with Tiger Saw, Tiger Claw, or my new band Tiger Summer Glau, this Scranton band plays appealing Superchunky fuzz-pop that harks back to a time when emo wasn't a curse word.
You know the deal: bright hooks played with head-clouding distortion; slightly muddy but driven rhythm section; midtempo and emotively yarled vocals. They're not original, but amazingly, they don't sound dated. These guys sound like an opening band that I wouldn't mind standing through. I wouldn't go out of my way to see them, but I wouldn't hide at the bar during their set, either. I'd probably stand there with a cup of beer and nod my head along to the music with surprised appreciation while keeping an eye on the girls in the front row.
In case that sounds tepid, just remember that I hate 90s college radio indie and all types of emo"- http://www.readjunk.com/cdreviews/tigers-jaw-s-t
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"When you get a CD from a genre of which you know very little about, it's often rather difficult to review. Of course, if you hate it you're often saved from that conundrum as you're free to rip it apart and say exactly what you dislike about it. The problem comes when you realize that you actually really like this CD because then you want to describe what it is that makes you like it so much, you want to compare it to others and you want to properly dissect it. Unfortunately you can't give your readers as much information as you would like because you don't have that information teetering on the edge of your tongue. That's the problem I'm faced with in regards to Tigers Jaw new Self-Titled album. It's been compared to the likes of Pavement's Crooked Rain and Superchunk's No Pocky For Kitty; but not having ever heard either album makes it difficult to determine whether or not that judgment is true.
What I can tell you is that Tigers Jaw's Self-Titled album is a surprisingly calm, heavily distorted,rather mellow indie rock record. While not rippling with energy, the record slowly builds up on itself which in turns creates a sense of excitement. You get songs like I Saw Water whose chorus swells and pulls you in. There's something about the layered vocal harmonies (which do appear on every track but seem so much more prominent on this track with the female vocals added softly in the background) that stands out. The Sun kicks off the album with a bright, upbeat and happy melody before they strip it down for the slow, steady chorus. I Was Never Your Boyfriend has a pop-punk edge while the following Meals on Wheels really uses the keyboard to their advantage. Although, don't get disheartened - this isn't your "I'm so happy" scenester keyboard melody. Instead its used to really cement and backup the guitar riff - to add an extra layer of melody that would be lacking otherwise.
But the thing that really makes this record so impressive is the little subtleties that plague it. You see, this record is insanely catchy without being in your face catchy. By that I mean you play it once and its alright. It catches your attention but doesn't fully grab you. The second listen you pick out a few more moments and by the third spin you've somehow managed to memorize every chorus on the record. It creeps up on you and you don't know it and on the fourth listen you're actively singing along with parts of the song and you've never once opened up the lyric booklet (well, the lyrics aren't printed in the booklet anyway so that wouldn't have helped much). Tigers Jaw found a way to sneak up on you and implant their songs in your memory without you ever knowing and that is a feat worth noting.
There you have it though. A solid indie-rock record that is heavily distorted and incredibly catchy. It's not always the most upbeat, does have a few filler and the vocals are a tad too nasally at some points; but it still remains a solid enough record to earn numerous plays over and over again."- http://www.thepunksite.com/reviews.php?page=album/o_z/tigersjaw_selftitled
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"Youth is a funny thing, and the five members of Tigers Jaw know it all too well. The gap they inhabit, between the relative freedom of 16 and the crushing real world reality of 21, has a habit of elevating the smallest revelation into an earth-shattering ordeal. It's not often you hear a band capable of interpreting the anxiety of maturity with the clear-headed sentiment of older bands; it doesn't hurt that their songs are solid displays of melodic indie rock with the pop punk stylings of a band that was still in elementary school when Weezer released their first album.
The band is tight as a drum, and their songwriting chops are such that each of the 10 songs here have an identity all their own. The heartbroken and sometimes cheesy lyrics can be forgiven due to the band's age, but the songs themselves are full of the syncopated beats, walking basslines and minor chords that Saves the Day and Texas is the Reason popularized among nascent basement-bred bands.
Songs like "The Sun" and "Heat" and "I Was Never Your Boyfriend" are in the vein of straight ahead pop punk, tempered with a looser guitar tone and plenty of melodic asides that give them a kinetic feel. Surprisingly the band follows up opener "The Sun" with the mostly acoustic "Plane Vs Tank Vs Submarine," which is as much like Brand New as the title recalls "Me Vs. Madonna Vs. Elvis." While it eventually builds up to an anthemic burner, the acoustic guitar and the melodic guitar solo that closes the song shows their willingness to explore different sounds.
Tigers Jaw are such a product of their influences, despite the mark they've made with their own songs, that an appreciation of the mid-to-late '90s indie rock and emo/punk movements is pretty much a requirement to enjoying them. That said, their vocal melodies tend to sound alike, especially when they hit a big crescendo, and their big, obvious hooks may not appeal to someone looking for something subtler. But their youth and enthusiasm is infectious, and it may be enough to win over a substantial audience."-Matthew Austin, http://www.30music.com/rev.php?rev=2661&mode=
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"This Pennsylvanian 6-piece represents everything there is to like about American bands; the raw energy that goes into the songwriting, the powerful sounds that are emitted from the instruments, and of course the downright coolness of being an American band.
Tigers Jaw offers a fresh yet familiar sound. One which you can quickly warm to, making them easily likable. Drawing inspiration from pop punk rock bands old and new, they seem to be able to take the best parts from the genre and mould them into a wonderful gestalt.
Meals On Wheels, with it's catchy 1 2 3 4 chorus, and I Saw Water are probably the two main stand out tracks of the album. Whilst the other tracks aren't quite as prominent, they certainly aren't just filling in space, just overlooked.
The only major flaw with this album is it's over too soon. At only 10 tracks long, some of the songs barely last 3 minutes, leaving you with the feeling of wanting more once it's finished. Luckily Tigers Jaw is an album you can listen to a few times on repeat before getting bored of it, so the solution to the shortness of the album... the loop button.
listen: if you like bands such as Weezer, Seafood and The Weakerthans
don't listen: there's no excuse for missing out on this band!
Available now from prison jazz records"- http://hangout.altsounds.com/reviews/102572-tigers-jaw-tigers-jaw-album.html
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"On a cursory listen I was kind of surprised that Andy Malcolm didn't review this himself. This appears to be the kind of thing that in '99 I regarded as standard issue US indie rock.
However ..r inspection, what was sounding like the get up kids mixing up with a well recorded superchunk (think here's where the strings come in), is subtly, well to put it politely a little bit MTV'd up.
I know some people dig this kind of pop punk edged indie rock, but to me it's just a bit off. It's sort of like the unreal valley or whatever they call it, the point where computer simulations of human faces get so close to perfect that they actually look a bit scary and less lifelike. I think one of the big problems is the harmony vocals that go through each and every tune (really every line, honestly, could they just not decide who was the main singer?). I suspect that these kids are indeed teens and are trying to do their utmost to sound rocking, but I think their years of watching the warped tour are closer at hand than they might be thinking. So they are excitable teens, but unforgivably (to my ears), they've forgotten to sound like excitable teens, I mean would you have listened to all those bands from back in the day if they weren't teetering on the edge of falling apart? There are nice tunes here, but it's just too well put together. Sorry teens, you are sort of the anti Meneguar."- Ian Scanlon, http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/reviews/?id=6565
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"Tigers Jaw take "sindie" to a fuzzy level with their eponymous second album.
I feel rather like I'm drowning under a sea of sunny US indie bands (henceforth to be known as "sindie" bands) this week. There's not much immediately wrong with music that sounds like its perpetually sunny outside and the world is optimistic, it just gets a little tiresome after a while.
Impressively, the band members are all aged under 20 and have had a pretty decent stab at making sindie a bit more grown up. Opener 'The Sun' has a world more depth to it than anything you can find on a Scouting For Girls or Pigeon Detectives album, but then that's not exactly difficult. The rest of the album has all the driving guitars, distorted fuzz and youthful drawling vocals from co-vocalists Ben Walsh and Adam Mcllwee. Tigers Jaw takes quite a bit of getting into but modestly rewards your persistence."- Sarah Laughton, http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article_album.php?id=8572
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"Tigers Jaw release their latest self-titled album that is full of indie pop punk rock tunes that may remind some people of bands like The Weakerthans and Weezer. They have presented ten promising tracks on the album, which should leave a promising imprint on the music scene that could easily be the sound track to many an American youth's summer.
Standout tracks include I Saw Water and Meals on Wheels, the former seeming like the main track of the album. There are some filler tracks on here, but they still contain some promising elements. Some of the tracks did just wash over me, with similar chord structures and melodies, but hey - it's pop punk…
Most impressive about Tigers Jaw is their honest approach to their sound, admitting where they draw their influences from, and also owning up to creating no kind of new sound or genre, just more promising music that can stand it's own with their peers."- http://www.dieshellsuit.co.uk/article_detail.asp?rID=3054
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