Take Me to the Sea

Johnny Whitney’s got such a distinctive voice (early punk seasoned with barbed wire dragged on glass) it’s hard not to be reminded of the band — Blood Brothers — he worked with for so long. But where Blood Brothers were all hyperkinetic fury, Jaguar Love is more restrained, a carefully contained chaos with a slight indie-pop undercurrent. Cody Votolato of the Blood Brothers is here on guitar, and Jay Clark of Pretty Girls Make Graves plays a variety of instruments and ends up at the recording/engineering helm as well. Whether it’s Clark’s influence, coming from the slightly more docile PGMG, or whether it’s a natural progression for Whitney and Votolato, the friendly fire of Jaguar Love leaves a mark, but one that heals quickly. “Highways of Gold” and “Jaguar Pirates” have the pop-sting of Sleater-Kinney, with hair-raising vocals atop see-sawing, bucking guitars, pulsing keyboards and heavy-bottomed drums. “The Man With the Plastic Suns” is a melodramatic, keyboard-driven overture, and “Bats Over the Pacific Ocean” is a relentless, kick drum-thumping number, filled in with roiling piano and twinkling xylophones. There's a measure of fun and experimentation here that makes Take Me to the Sea a joyride.