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Javelynn

JAVELYNN – CHIMAERA AT HEART (7)

Swedish dance/new wave/pop/industrial group Javelynn, formerly known as Javelynn Fate and fronted by former Ashbury Heights member Yaz, don’t make music that can be bottled, slapped with a label and sold to the complacent public.  Citing their influences as everything from Goldfrapp to Joan Jett, Javelynn seek to push the envelope and blend genres with new album ’Chimera At Heart’.  With such an indefinable sound you might assume their music would sound messy and ill-conceived.  Wrong.

Opening gambit ‘Wannabe’ is the most pop-oriented song on the record and does not demonstrate the band’s full potential.  In fact the album generally gets edgier and heavier as it goes on, starting with the trance rhythm of ‘Die Young’, to the dance/rock amalgamation of ‘La Fin Absolue Du Monde’, to the moody grind of ‘This Song Is Not About You’.  There are wild whips of synth, lashings of heavy guitar and mind-bending electro layered thickly with Yaz’s simplistic vocals, lacking in embellishment and trusting the lyrics, and all the more effective for it.

‘Chimaera At Heart’ is an album of a great many contradictions and hybrids. What makes it work is that each song remains easy to listen to; Javelynn haven’t over-complicated their music or tried to be clever. The result is a sound that is neither here nor there, yet feels organic and creatively grown – not forced out of a desire to be radical. ‘Chimaera At Heart’ might need a couple of listens but your ears will thank you for it.

Reviewed by Annette Simmonds
Chimaera At Heart is out now on Metal Blade Records

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