We’ve covered the work of Liverpool’s Eyesore & The Jinx several times in recent years. First back in 2019 with ‘On an Island‘, a single we described as “cutting and hysterical, as though the banality of society has pushed them over the edge,” then more recently this summer with the release of their single An Ideas Man / Do What You Love, a landlord-inspired soundtrack for, as we put it, “a world in which men will kick you repeatedly on a punctual monthly rota and pretend they are doing you a favour.”
November sees the release of the debut Eyesore & The Jinx full-length, Jitterbug. Recorded at Yellowbird Studio during and produced by Daniel Fox of Gilla Band, the album represents a new stage for the outfit, though maintains the twitchy, angular sound and sardonic vocals which made their name. Take single ‘Nocturnal Athletes (Ode To Bruno)’, a track which faces up to difficult personal circumstances with frantic energy and acerbic wit. “Bruno Mars and I go way back,” as lead Josh Miller explains. “Our relationship began in mid-2021, shortly after the death of my mother which was followed by a period of ill-health and what was in hindsight a breakdown. I joined a gym in a feeble attempt to somehow rebuild myself and grip some structure which had evaded me like a wet bar of soap.”
Only, true to the Eyesore & The Jinx style, Miller and co. use these circumstances to dig into the bizarre heart of contemporary Britain. The gym as the encapsulation of the country, where an assortment of lonely and overworked people run without going anywhere, lift with no purpose beyond some abstract penance, and stare at screens playing Top 40 videos on a loop. “In order to avoid the kind of people I’d always told myself occupied gyms,” Miller continues, “I began exercising very late at night alongside shift workers, competitive bodybuilders and other similarly self-conscious weight lifters. It was there that me and Bruno met. His porcelain smile, slick dance moves and sustained success beaming down at me from the Pure Gym TV screens, a stark contrast to the wasteland my life had become at that time.”
