Say what you will about Jack White\u2019s personal life (he and his wife just hosted a party to celebrate their divorce?), musically the guy doesn\u2019t make mistakes. Whether it\u2019s with The White Stripes, Raconteurs or his new outfit The Dead Weather, the man knows what he\u2019s doing to such a high degree, it\u2019s odd more bands don\u2019t emulate his style. Maybe others don\u2019t want to seem unoriginal, but there are ways to imitate without sacrificing your soul.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s then give a rousing golf clap (in the good Urban Dictionary way) to Sleeper Agent, a raging, full body-stomping sextet from Bowling Green, Kentucky, for continuing the legacy Meg and Jack called quits on a few months back. On its debut album Celabrasion, Sleeper Agent has taken the spirit of the White Stripes and mixed in elements of Led Zeppelin, Motown, T Rex and The Pixies for an elixir as smooth as Pappy Van Winkle (Kentucky reference No. 1).<\/p>\n
Just listen to the Celabrasion\u2018s opening track (\u201cGet It Daddy\u201d) and you\u2019ll see what I mean. The playful girl-boy vocal trade-off between Alex Kandel (the girl) and Tony Smith is irresistible, and when the band breaks into a drum and guitar melee a minute in, you\u2019ve done gone to garage-rock heaven. Sleeper Agent goes from zero to 75 for one of the most exciting two minutes in music (Kentucky reference No. 2) \u2014 and it hasn\u2019t even reached turn one yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cForce A Smile,\u201d \u201cShuga Cane,\u201d \u201cBottomed Out\u201d \u2013 this band is relentless in its infectious, sing-along milieu \u2013 even the song titles are slogans. But Sleeper Agent isn\u2019t a one-trick pony (Kentucky reference No. 3), as songs such as \u201cLove Blood\u201d and \u201cBe My Monster\u201d showcase a band ranging to envelop a wealth of sounds while keeping the listener invested. The latter song is the best of the lot, with Kandel lyrically racing a grinding guitar while Smith narrates in the background, up until the song becomes a groovy, chanting, samba. That\u2019s right. Groovy. Chanting. Samba. And no, I haven\u2019t had a single Mint Julep (Kentucky reference No. 4), but it\u2019s sounding like a good idea.<\/p>\n
Not what you were expecting from the Bluegrass State? Same here, but dammit I love surprises. Celabrasion is a swaggering statement with overt homages that work in the best of ways. It\u2019s a crowning achievement (Kentucky reference No. 5). Jack would be proud of what he wrought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Say what you will about Jack White\u2019s personal life (he and his wife just hosted a party to celebrate their divorce?), musically the guy doesn\u2019t make mistakes. Whether it\u2019s with The White Stripes, Raconteurs or his new outfit The Dead Weather, the man knows what he\u2019s doing to such a high degree, it\u2019s odd more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[321,322],"class_list":["post-1237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-celabrasion","tag-sleeper-agent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1239,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237\/revisions\/1239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}