Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Love and Hate, two sides of a coin that both require clear heads and nothing landing on its sides, and whilst in respects those clear heads can lead to a possible Heaven, or at least a pleasurable amount of bliss on Earth, love also has the capacity to share Hell upon the recipient’s patch of ground that they have over eagerly prepared in the expectation that it would be smooth and offer an unshakable belief in the future.
Raised on a diet of pure distinction for the hard rock edge, the thirty-year journey from Blackout In The Red Room to HELL CA, via the distraction that adoration provides and which jealousy from others worms its way into the blood and the veins, see’s Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate roar back into the affections of the listener, a place which they undoubtedly never left and in which strides a larger dramatic and fuel assisted path since their initial return in 2017 and in the album Before The Blackout.
The 1990s may have been the prolific period for many bands of the genre, but with a new dynamic and arguably time stretched audience comes the inevitable slow down; and that is the Hell of it all, for an artist the life blood comes from the bond created, from the forge that is forever lit, and should those flames be allowed to dwindle, to become frozen over, then Hell and love are entwined, merged, blurred into one as the memories take on a darker, less than perfect hue.
HELL CA is though the antipathies of such frozen promises of love eternal, for in this remarkable recording, in the depths of despair that the listener may have felt when the band first thought no more, comes brightness, the resurgence that was hinted at and now fully explored, and Hell it seems is a lot closer to Heaven than we like to admit to ourselves.
Across tracks such as Acid Baby, Gonna Take You Higher, Hard To Say Goodbye, Bruised and Battered, Wanna Be Somebody, and Lonely Days Are Gone, the band take on the world once more, and with a sense of humility, of the unpretentious and a gargantuan sense of poise, Hell is only a place along the road, easily avoided if you know a different route, and definitely one to rampage in and spread the good word of heavy duty Rock if you feel inclined. After all the Devil is only opinion dresses up to give you chills, but light a fire underneath the arse, and you watch him dance like the rest of us.
Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate’s HELL CA is the comeback, it is the memory of what was, and the jubilation in its forward groove, unceasingly ready to rock the heart out.
Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate’ HELL CA is out now and available from Golden Robot Records.
Ian D. Hall