Rover is Jackson Jackson. Sort of. Jackson writes or co-writes the songs, sings lead and plays most of the instruments. He is co-producer. But he is reluctant to call his independent EP Three, a solo project. In the notes accompanying the review copy of the EP, Jackson mentions Lenny Kravitz and Dave Grohl as two artists who "have been instrumental in showing me that you can have a band mentality and still have a level of control." But at the same time he insists that the perception that Rover is a solo act isn't entirely true, because the music has been strongly influenced by the players who have played live dates with him.
Jonathan Johnson contributes some guitar tracks, plays bass, and provides digital effects. The album was recorded at Johnson's recording studio, the Orange Juice Factory. Scott Magill plays all sorts of keyboards and sings backing vocals.
The musical arrangements have a strong retro feel. Jackson grew up on classic 70s rock and roll, and the influences are obvious. The guitar effects and instrumental mixes sound quite a bit like what you hear on "classic hit" radio. The producers experiment with the vocal mixes as well, sometimes mixing the vocals out front and then back in the mix in the same song, as in the first cut, "Wrecking Ball." And if you didn't notice the influences otherwise, the last song on the EP, a bonus cut, is a very straightforward cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" (the song about the astronaut Major Tom).
The instrumental arrangements include a variety of keyboards with the standard guitar, bass and drums. At times the vocals sound a lot like Justin Stevens's work with the Dime Store Prophets and the Justin Dillon Combo. Jackson cites Stevens in the liner notes.
Jackson's writing shows an ability to give common ideas a twist and make songs around them. "Suicide King" turns the risks of card-based gambling into an elaborate metaphor for life: a red King, Queen and Jack become living characters for whom the hands of a card game become a matter of life and death:
He [the king] was beat by an ace with a glove in his hand
Who was found in the boot of a crooked man.
The cards were dealt. He didn't like what he got
So he changed the rules and while running for the door in the back was shot.
Mixed in with all this in the chorus is the old proverb "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man [meaning a Jack?] becomes king." "Wrecking Ball" mixes allusions to the life of Moses (complete with a sound clip of Charlton Heston in "The Ten Commandments") with commentaries on the banality of pop culture as represented by cable TV (complete with a sound clip of Heston in "Planet of the Apes").
Overall, this is a very listenable EP. A bit more variety in tempos would be welcome, as all the original songs move along at a brisk (though not breakneck) pace. But fans of the retro sound will find much to enjoy here.
3.5 tocks
