Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

For many in the U.K. the American city of Chicago either conjures up the idea of some of the television programmes or films that feature the tremendous beauty and sometimes grimy underworld that the city is built upon, the band for which wonderful rock ballads were seemingly entrusted to for the best part of two decades and with Peter Cetera at the helm made the band a global phenomenon or possibly even the thought of Renee Zellweger and Welsh actor Catherine-Zeta Jones vamping it up as two women on death-row in Cook County Jail in the sensational musical Chicago.

What will be new to most British music lovers is the band Jackpot Donnie. Formed in 2003, Adam Campbell, Brian Wise, Dave Langley, Matt Love and Peter Spero have created something intently listenable and enjoyable in their new E.P. Mayday. Full of confident and appealing songs, the five piece show that Chicago is not just a place that serves as a backdrop to the fantasy world of film but at its core holds the reality of music very dear.

Songs that are immense as one of the Great Lakes that the city hugs close and who its many layers of life unwrap back and reveal much as one peeling an onion finds come forth. What On Earth, Step Back and the superb The Art of Mixing Colours are vast, they hold much sway over the content of the E.P. and frame the sound coming out of the windy city.  Mayday is full on, controlled and yet with the hint of spirit that you would normally find in cities such as Montreal and New Orleans. It is a testament to the band that they play in the studio as if they were performing infront of a full house in Lincoln Hall.

Jackpot Donnie bring back the spirit of the ability to combine reggae with hard rock, to produce something disturbingly cool, a set of songs so beguiling that Elliot Ness would be forced to find a loophole in the law to try and have it shut down. A delightful E.P. and one that should travel well across the miles.

Ian D. Hall