Weekend lead singer and songwriter Shaun Durkan’s Gibson SG guitar can serve as a fairly perfect symbol for their sophomore record, Jinx. Its dark, glossy and can create enough noise and sound to pummel the drum in your ear. The once San Franciscan and now New Yorker garage rock band Weekend blew out speakers back in 2010 with their debut Sports, a record that made its mark on the music scene with its loud, blaring demeanor. Three years later and a few changes to their lineup, the band is back to challenge the sophomore curse, or jinx.
When they began, it sounded as though Weekend’s three main sources of musical inspirations were a Twizzler-twined mix of the shoegaze pop of My Bloody Valentine, the dystopian fuzz guitar of the Jesus & Mary Chain and a shower sing-along to Ian Curtis of Joy Division. But on Jinx, they’re beginning to shed their obvious resemblances to past heroes and take shape into their own style.
Album opener “Mirrors” starts with a celestial light synthesized build before breaking into bass-heavy throb of dark matter. Durkan sings, “I feel sick, sick, sick, sick/ In my heart/ He only comes in the night/ Someone just like me,” as he spins a modern day tale of a hipster Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There’s a noticeable change in the lead guitar work, mainly heard in tracks “July,” “Oubliette” and “Celebration, Fl,” that recalls an ’80s pop aesthetic with its light, reverb-heavy echo.
“Sirens” features a backing sample of a fading angelic choir similar to Panda Bear’s “I’m Not.” The track is lined with one of Weekend’s trademarks: a tumbling bass melody that serves as a road of direction for the sounds created by the other band members. The album’s single, “It’s Alright,” plays as dreary machine on a march to each crack of the snare drum.
The excess layer of distorted guitars that was so prevalent on Sports has been replaced with a coat of gloss and glaze that radiates throughout Jinx. Though the musical instrumentation sounds more cheerful and sunlit, the lyrical content and mood of Jinx continues to sway into melancholy. Yet, it’s the type of summertime blues that acts as a key component balancing out any set of emotions or music library.
The sophomore record can often be a Goliath that can unforgivably squash any group that hasn’t devised a formula that breaks new and keeps the established good. (Just ask MGMT and the Stone Roses.) Weekend, though, have earned their keep with Jinx. They’ve expanded enough away from their roots of garage noise rock and have taken a few steps towards a more accessible, grandeur gothic sound.