BURNING AIRLINES

BURNING AIRLINES

MISSION: CONTROL (1999)
320 KBPS

After Jawbox's amicable split in 1997, frontman J. Robbins and guitarist Bill Barbot teamed up with ex-Government Issue drummer, Pete Moffett, to form Burning Airlines, with Barbot switching from guitar to bass duties. Mission: Control! the band's debut album, brilliantly channels Robbins' pop sensibilities through muscular hardcore riffs with insistent, rhythmic foundations. With its seamless, dynamic shifts, thick riffs and killer melody, "3 Sisters" epitomizes the transition away from Jawbox's clipped, angular post-punk and onto a much more open-ended playing field. Barbot's bass work is a big surprise; Jawbox bassist Kim Coletta always rattled off cool melodies, but Barbot has a sharper and more intuitive sense of placement. His rubber-band lines do the dirty work on the slick "Wheaton Calling," and tug on Robbins' riffs like a magnet in "Pacific 231." Jawbox's music had begun to incorporate a greater range of moods by its final album, and Burning Airlines finds Robbins' melodies highly effective in a variety of settings: insanely catchy punk-pop ("Pacific 231"), furious Nirvana-esque rock ("Sweet Deals on Surgery" and head-spinning opener, "Carnival") and arty dissonance ("I Sold Myself In," the intelligently weird "Crowned"). "Scissoring" is the album's standout cut, with its wicked harmonic riff, bad-ass bassline and thrashy second-half. With rarely a dull or unoriginal moment, Mission: Control! is a very promising start to life after Jawbox.

1. Carnival
2. Wheaton Calling
3. Pacific 231
4. Scissoring
5. The Escape Engine
6. My Pornography
7. Meccano
8. 3 Sisters
9. Flood of Foreign Capital
10. Crowned
11. Sweet Deals on Surgery
12. I Sold Myself In

IDENTIKIT (2001)
320 KBPS

BURNING AIRLINES's second effort IDENTIKIT, is a cool mix of punk, pop, and rock that is both inventive and crisply original. Great harmonies mesh sweetly with cruchy guitar, distorted bass, and metronomicly askew drums to create short, punchy songs that are both complex and easy on the ears. This is one band who knows how to rock with authority and both CDs in their arsenal are highly recommended. Way better than anything mainstream, this is one act who have a true identity and they have wrapped it up for you in a nice little kit.

1. Outside The Aviary
2. Morricone Dancehall
3. A Lexicon
4. A Song With No Words
5. All Sincerity
6. The Surgeon's House
7. The Deluxe War Baby
8. Everything Here Is New
9. Paper Crowns
10. Blind Trial
11. Identikit
12. Election Night Special
13. Tastykake
14. Earthbound
15. Dear Hilary