Molotov Jukebox- Carnival Flower Genre: Gypstep Label: Own Best Track: Neon Lights
I was first alerted to Molotov Jukebox when I saw that they were on the line up of The Beautiful Days Festival in 2013. They were billed as a Gyspy dubstep band and this naturally got my attention. After listening to them through various streaming services I was even more intrigued. They have now released their first full length album Carnival Flower through the funding site PledgeMusic.com and this may well be the start of something great for the band. It feels like all eleven tracks of the album take place during the same wild night, there is cohesiveness in the songs that make them pieces of a bigger puzzle. One or two tracks stand out as solo hits, but the album works better as a whole. To explain this album is near impossible, it is part tango, part ska, part tropical and all eclectic topped off with an extraordinary vocalist. It’s like being in an underground club in the sixties, smoke filled, where anything can happen and frequently does. It would be easy to compare the band to a group like No Doubt, both have a charismatic and sexy vocalist, horn sections and seemingly boundless energy. This would be an easy and simplified comparison. Molotov Jukebox has got more in common with bands such as Vaya Con Dios than a Californian semi- ska band. There is something of the underground and rebelliousness to Molotov Jukebox that bands like No Doubt lack. It comes from the very air that the band and their singer Natalia Tena give off; it virtually drips eroticism from every single word in the songs and vibrates from the rhythms echoing through the speakers. Where other bands sing about heartache or teenage angst Molotov Jukebox talk of seduction and lust as if they were entities. The want to put out an album filled with new material is understandable, but there are tracks out there by the band that would have been nice to include, songs that would have fit well into the canon of Carnival Flower and might have added to or replaced some of the tracks. There is a sense of some of the songs being too similar in there composition and this is the only weakness to this album. Hopefully this album can be made more accessible to the wider audience by being picked up by a record label and given some good press or maybe Molotov Jukebox continue on their underground path and this is exactly what makes them great, a fan base brought together by sweaty lust, accordions and a wicked horn section.
Carnival Flower is now available to stream, as well as download from the regular places
C.M. Marry Hultman
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