Jemina Pearl
Break It Up
(Ecstatic Peace)
Break It Up is former Be Your Own Pet singer’s Jemina Pearl’s solo debut for Ecstatic Peace. Whereas her former band concentrated on bratty punk, here Pearl seems to be attempting to broaden her palette. The record boasts a more mature, pop oriented direction, but she just doesn’t seem to be able to realize her ambitions. While the record succeeds at points, in the end neither her voice nor her song writing chops seem ready to step out of her gritty punk origins. Sure BYOP wrote songs about riding bicycles and food fights, but they were well-written snotty punk tunes. Break it Up is full of played-out couplets and Jemina just doesn’t seem to want to bring the same vocal power she used in BYOP for this new set of songs.
Pearl plays it safe on the opening tracks, retaining some of BYOP’s energy, but not as noisy. She starts to move forward on “Ecstatic Appeal,” but it’s built on a tired throbbing '80s beat with an uninspired vocal performance. A few tracks later “Nashville Shores” begins with the unfortunate opening lines “Boys are bad, beer is cheap.” In BYOP maybe this would have worked, but Pearl isn’t sneering as she sings this and it’s hard to take this seriously when she sings it straight. Then there is the could-have-been brilliant Iggy Pop duet, “I Hate People,” which suffers a similar unambitious fate. What is unfortunate is how confident and expansive Pearl sounded in comparison on BYOP’s final record, Get Awkward. While she may have still been singing about eating brains, over cheap distortion pedals her voice found its strength. On the clean-cut power pop canvas of Break it Up, it just doesn’t sell the ideas.
There are a few winners here, such as when Pearl brings back that shit kicking/I front a punk band attitude on “Looking for Trouble,” and this without rethreading BYOP territory. Later, on “D is for Danger,” Pearl finally opens the throttle on her voice and then adds some nice backing vocals in the chorus. But this record is not likely be a repeat listen for most. Still, one can hold out hope for future releases; she has the voice and clearly can channel the attitude. Perhaps she will find the right mix on her next record.