With every year, our lives change dramatically, with late nights out swapped for Netflix and cups of tea while we wonder what the hell happened to me? The latest installment to the New Junk City discography explores the idea in Same Places. Atlanta based quartet made their stepping stone breakthrough with their 2014’s Self Titled Effort LP continues into Same Places with use of high energy and intensity throughout, all the while tackling the crushing realisation that we are getting older. Released through Real Ghost Records, Same Places has nine tracks, all fluently mixing together to create a piece that truly is an experience to say the least.
Tailored between folk, punk and pop sound unique to New Junk City, Same Places kicks off very promising with ‘Useless Friends’ that has charisma and character for it’s mismatched genres. Captivating in nature, it has an addictive style of catchy hooks and lyrics that’s completely mesmerizing. ‘High In The Morning’ continues that high-energy, highlighting the talent for harmonic guitar riffs in crisp production. Same Places is unrelenting in capability to perform and execute it’s plethora of talent. ‘Half Life’ has it’s spotlight directly shining upon cadenced drumming that pulls the song together ricocheting a weighted bass that adds depth to it’s octave guitar.
While the magnitude of instruments is fluent throughout the track, a noted aspect is the tone of vocals that pulls the music in different directions. Sharing similarities to The Gaslight Anthem with it’s vocal range, ‘Stay Asleep’ takes a more relaxed feel due to the softer vocals harmonizing in tune to the chords of the track, explored fully in ‘In Our Blood’ what effects that the slower vocals can really do to their sound. The energy of the track certainly derives from the use of drums, whereas ‘Losing Side’ is tracked solely by it’s bass. It takes an almost horror like feel, with this heavy, claustrophobic bass repeating throughout the track. There are tracks on Same Places that truly defines New Junk City proving that their progression, passion and hard-work is pays off incredibly with the pure success of sound that Same Places has produced.
If you’re a fan of Creeper, The Gaslight Anthem or The Mezingers then New Junk City will fit perfectly into your collection of music, holding onto a vintage sound of punk with modern twists that pushes it into mainstream listening. With plans of an EU/UK tour, NJC should take the scene by storm supported fully by those who have given this album a listen. While the album contains a whole, full length nine tracks, it feels almost too short, and only a taster of what we can expect from this band. ‘Coffee Mug’ hints at other similarities, feeling almost incomplete as we salivate for more from this stand-out track and what we could be receiving. (Spoiler, it’s a modern The Offspring and we sure as hell want that.)
