This record is fucking bonkers.
Johnny Whitney’s previous band, Blood Brothers, were often weird and wonderful but in a spazzy, aggressive way. Jaguar Love is a record that’s messy and incoherent and lovingly drenched in synth, vocal melodies, handclaps and everything and anything in between. It just doesn’t make any sense at all – and not really in a good way. While ‘Hologram Jams’ does have some high points (‘Don’t Die Alone’ is a mega keeper and ‘Evaline‘ is relatively normal by this band’s standards), some of these songs are just plain old terrible. ‘Up All Night’, for instance, is just awful, a song that doesn’t seem to have any structure and just features Whitney’s marmite vocal style over a high-pitched bleep and sample. It’s the aural equivalent of a dog vomiting.
Sadly for Jaguar Love the low points heavily outnumber the high ones. Johnny and bandmate Cody Votalato clearly like the weird and wonderful and kudos for writing an album that sounds like absolutely nothing else in existence, but I just cannot see how anyone of sound mind could get anything out of this whatsoever. The longer the album goes on, the more I scratch my head. I’m sure someone, somewhere will ‘get’ this, but I just cannot see the appeal at all. Sorry.