Jacknife Lee

On the heels of Timbaland and Pharrell Williams, marquee indie producer Jacknife Lee shuffles into the spotlight with an album that sounds like a gloomy mash-up of the bands he’s helped transform into mainstream champs. You can hear tinges of Editors and Bloc Party in the claustrophobic clatter of ‘Fear Of Nothing’; warbling earnestly on ‘I Cut Your Hair’, he sounds like Snow Patrol on a micro-budget. Or maybe it's just that they sound like him?
Still, former Compulsion man Lee has a few choice moves of his own. Marinaded in ‘80s synths and laptop beats, ‘I Like It, Yeah’ suggests Death In Vegas on a krautrock trip; plastic punk salvo ‘Making Me Money’ is the sort of thing Iggy Pop might do were he aware of irony. You won’t find many surprises here – beneath the glossy producer exterior, Jacknife Lee is emphatically not a frustrated experimentalist – but Jacknife Lee undoubtedly has its charms.