“Our ties got thin our pants got tight” - from the song “Need a Wave” So, Jeffie Genetic is Jeffie Pop from the Vancouver based punk-pop-ska outfit The New Town Animals and Jeffie Genetic and his Clones is Jeffie’s first solo non-Animals release. And for the occasion, he’s put together an all star backing band comprised of (as listed on the CD...): Jeffrey Clone, Jeffy Clone and Jeff! Clone – all right, enough of the bullshit – this all basically means that Jeffie Genetic/Pop played all of the instruments on this record himself. Nice accomplishment! But all kidding aside, Need a Wave is a great record choked full of straight ahead, frantic and edgy pop-propulsion anthems. Jeffie Genetic and his CLONES serve up no frills power snips of guitar driven rhythms highlighted by fuzzy retro-vox and synth-soaked backing tracks. Need A Wave is ten tracks of action packed new wave-revival jitter-jitter punk-pop-rock-pop. The record plays like a bullet – the whole thing clocks in at 27 minutes – and it pays clever tribute to a time when bands took up alternate identities and pumped out short one-after-the-other “fashion before function” under 2 ½ minute-replicated tunes that all sounded the same. If you urn for those “good ol’ days” then this record will send you into a pleasant time warp. Odds are if you like the opening rocking first track on this record that you will like the other 9 clones that Jeffie and his CLONES have to serve up. Jeffie Genetic and his CLONES was released on Seattle’s Dirtnap Records (www.dirtnaprecs.com) and it comes with a CD-rom video for the track “Records Go Round”.

By L Pounds
Apr 25, 2004