The album goes easy on the ears (a beginning-to-end listen through takes as long as a 30-minute commute), and all the key elements of Luscious Jackson are there. The band raised funds to record their new album Magic Hour in less than three days. Now, 15 years after their last album, Luscious Jackson returns after a crowdsourcing campaign. Their output ranged from essential (see In Search of Manny, Fever In Fever Out) to highly recommended ( Natural Ingredients, Electric Honey). While not reaching that level of cultural influence in the ’90s, Luscious Jackson managed to accomplish a feat few artists and bands can claim: not have a single weak album in their mix. But then came 2003’s Strays, and later The Great Escape Artist, and Jane’s Addiction went from being legendary to utterly human, just as capable of releasing a weak album as any other band. It seemed the band’s brilliance could only be captured for a brief time and then was doomed to burn itself out. The album was considered by many to be one of the benchmark albums of the ’90s. Before 2003, the band was elevated to an almost mythical status with their final “proper” album Ritual de lo Habitual. A reunion tour might be great for nostalgia (see the Pixies’ first reunion tour of the early ’00s), but once a band gets behind the studio glass, they are doing nothing less than risking their legacy. For the most part, it even sounds like it was fun to make if only it were as much fun to hear.The success rate for post-reunion albums is so small that it’s no wonder that so many reformed bands pause before stepping foot in a studio. It's just a return to very familiar territory without the urgency and mystery of Luscious Jackson's 90s-era music-the Lollapalooza Nation equivalent of, say, a new Winger or Y&T album. Magic Hour isn't saddening or frustrating in the way that cash-in reunions can be (and the band's clearly not doing it to cash in). ( "So Rock On" is the one that the Beasties' Adam Horovitz contributed to, and involves the "woo-hah" cadence that Busta Rhymes lifted from the Sugarhill Gang "Show Us What You Got" is the one with an old-school syndrum breakdown "Are You Ready" is the one that mentions Dancing with the Stars.) There's also a novelty song, the ass-watching anthem "#1 Bum", which wears out its welcome in a hurry. "We're better together, you and me," goes Magic Hour's first song another one features the lyric "we go back but we can't go back/ but we can go on." There are a handful of likeable, more or less interchangeable let's-party tunes, most of which involve some nifty guitar playing from Glaser. Unsurprisingly, a lot of Cunniff and Glaser's lyrics these days are about the durability of their partnership. At least their new material doesn't suffer from reunion bloat: all but two of the album's ten tracks clock in under 3:15. One track after another cycles through mix-and-match riffs and catchphrases for a few minutes, then evaporates when its three minutes are up.
This album, though, is pretty obviously a creation of Pro Tools (which Cunniff learned in order to record it). (Trimble's sitting this one out again.) Their best songs of the '90s, from "Daughters of the Kaos" to "Naked Eye", often seemed like constellations of new and borrowed hooks that miraculously fit together into songs.
Glaser and Cunniff recorded their parts of Magic Hour in New York, and Schellenbach's drums were added in Los Angeles. The 2013 edition of Luscious Jackson sounds less like a band than like friends who used to be in a band together. (The children's album, Baby DJ, will apparently be out soon.) Last year, they ran a crowdfunding campaign to make a new Luscious Jackson album-this one. (Grand Royal released all of their original records, and drummer Kate Schellenbach had been the Beasties' original drummer.) When the group lost keyboardist Vivian Trimble in 1998, then punched out after releasing the unspectacular Electric Honey, they seemed to have stuck around exactly long enough.īassist Jill Cunniff and guitarist Gabby Glaser both released solo albums in 2007 sometime around then, they got together to work up some children's music, but couldn't find a convenient way to release it. They had some terrific moments in the 90s-seek out 1993's deliciously murky In Search of Manny EP-but rarely shook off their reputation as a satellite of the Beastie Boys. It's been 14 years since the last Luscious Jackson album, and the world mostly hadn't been clamoring for a reunion.