Industry showcase from Jayler precursors new album ‘Voices Unheard’ report and photos from Dawn Osborne

Jayler were due to perform a special acoustic showcase for industry at Gibson’s Garage, but last minute the venue was changed when Gibson had its electric supply cut by accident. The event, therefore, took place nearby at the Karma Sanctum Soho hotel which has a reputation for special rock events and we were not to be disappointed despite the brevity, being only 30 minutes or so.

Initially the guys walked in without ceremony to take up their instruments, the only intro being singer James Bartholomew’s reference to their new album ‘Voices Unheard’ as they launched into the first track ‘I’ll Meet You There’. His voice is fierce, high and piercing. As expected the material is very Led Zeppelin: it’s hard to argue with perfection.

After receiving rapturous applause they began to relax into it and go hell for leather with uptempo fast strumming for ‘Hate To See It End’ and Bartholomew begins encouraging the audience to get more into it too, by clapping along.

After asking the crowd how they are doing and asking who had preordered the new album he introduced ‘Bittersweet’ as a song about the road and saying goodbye to someone close to you. It’s beautifully quiet intro played by Tyler Arrowsmith brings light and shade into the performance. There’s no hiding in an acoustic performance and Bartholomew sounds even better than at a festival with his voice stripped primal and bare, very high, effortlessly breathy and ethereal. The lyric ‘me and you’ references Zeppelin reflecting, of course, their overall sound.

After an announcement that they are playing the 100 Club for the album launch on June 1st  they give us an insight into unreleased tracks with ‘I Roam’ given a more country sound by the introduction of the mandolin played by Rocky Hodgkiss (who also plays keyboards and bass). It’s a fast almost chickenshack jam with Bartholomew upping the ante with the harmonica right to the end.

The most recent single ‘Down Below’ is announced as the band’s pitch to get into the mainstream with more energetic harmonica and tambourine from Bartholomew and his penetrating vocals. Drummer Ed Evans is really getting into his bongos, raising the energy level to a crescendo, with Tyler lifting up his guitar at the end in a flourish.

It seems ‘Riverboat Queen’ is meant to be the finale, introduced as a song that the band wrote when they got management about being taken on a journey as a band, but after announcing “we’re done” it’s clear the audience is not moving and starts calling out requests.  Bartholomew teases the audience by promising five more songs if they buy him a drink. In fact, they finish with ‘Lovemaker’ telling us that they have reworked and re-recorded it, the band having felt that it had already evolved since the original recording as the band matures. I swear I can even hear a drum fill on the bongos! The stripped back format just showed more of the band’s talent not less, fantastic musicianship meaning they deliver beyond their years in groove and feel.

Dawn Osborne