The Guild League - Jet Set ... Go

  by Tommy Gunnarsson

published: 9 / 7 / 2002

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Review

Tali White of the Lucksmiths and both members of Sodastream. Handclaps and popsongs. This all sounded a bit too good to be true, when I first read about it on the Matinée website a month or so ago. And when I got to hear the limited edition (1000 copies only) CD-single, I realized that it WAS a bit too good to be true. The cream of the Australian indie pop scene together on three tracks sounds good in theory, but sadly it isn’t that good in reality. Actually, the only song where they all play is the title track, 'Jet Set…Go!', and even though it is quite good, it’s not as great as one might have expected from these guys. When you think about it though, there are not too many so called “supergroups” that have actually been very good. In the last year or so, a band called the Best Friends Group released an album on the US label Magic Marker, and it consisted of members from the Lucksmiths (Mark Monnone, bass player), Sodastream and Kissing Book among others. Just like the Guild League, you kind of expect more than your average indiepop band, and I am sure that this is wrong of me. Why should they be so much better just because they work together ? There is a Swedish saying that goes “the more cooks, the worse the soup”… The two remaining songs on this single are just Tali himself, with a guitar, or as is the case with the song 'A Faraway Place', he just claps his hands and makes some noises to back up his lovely voice. These songs are demo recordings, and they will be featured “for real” on their forthcoming album, which will released before Christmas 2002 (or at least it says so on the sleeve). If that album is as good as this single, I won’t run madly to the record shop to buy it. But I will most certainly give it a listen...

Track Listing:-

1 Jet Set ... Go
2 A Faraway Place (demo)
3 Cornflakes (demo)

Label Links:-

http://matineerecordings.com/
https://www.facebook.com/matineerecord