Channels

It’s not surprising that the latest project from the man behind Jawbox and Burning Airlines sounds like… Jawbox and Burning Airlines. J. Robbins, producer extraordinaire and musical mastermind has teamed up with drummer Darren Zentek and bassist/co-vocalist Janet Morgan to produce this debut full-length for Channels — a logical progression from their EP Open. Held together by the creativity of Robbins’s guitar work, Waiting For the Next End of the World bears the most similarity to Burning Airlines’ more riff-based songs from Identikit, although some almost straight-ahead chord progressions on songs like "Chivaree” show a certain amount of maturation on Robbins’s part. With a handful of technical, catchy and interesting songs, the record only falls flat during the few slow numbers, which end up sounding like a boring Fugazi instead of the calculated emotional pieces they’re intended to be. The fast songs are damn-near perfect, though, making this record worth picking up for even casual fans of Robbins’s work.