(Blackbird)
Into the rapidly expanding universe of female-fronted bands steps Jake with lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Jessie Lee Montague. But what sets Jake's debut Hooked apart from the others are emotionally raw lyrics and a gift for using funk as a weapon.
Hooked gets right down to business with "Anything But Love." Four bars into a swaggering Melissa Etheridge-like guitar riff, Montague's voice quietly addresses a (soon-to-be-ex) lover. Eight bars later the song busts wide open as she wails away at the chorus: "But I don't really think I am the one to keep you up at night or make you lose your appetite for anything but love."
This kind of angry funk surfaces again in Hooked's fifth song, "NewFunk," which finds Montague singing "you've got a lot to learn about loving me." "Time" also gets the funk out as Montague implores "what have I got to do for you to look at me skin and all?" It's really not until the album's 11th song, "Monster," that Montague finally gets down and dirty, using funk in the sexy way radio is accustomed to with the line "I burn in all the places your fires start."
But by that time, you've already realized this is a songwriter who may a little world weary. And Montague has seen her share of the world, from busking for money in London's Underground to living as a squatter with no heat or running water in a Brooklyn tenement. She's turned those experiences into lines like "If you believe there's a heaven somewhere between you and me, I will try to believe there's a heaven. But the angel's gone blind in the sweet summer snow, I hardly remember what I used to know..." from "Heaven."
And she doesn't make apologies for it. "Songwriting is a very intuitive process for me," she says. "It's a release. I go for the emotion, or the images that recreate my emotions."
When you hear funk, you automatically think rhythm section, because what's funk without bass and drums? To their credit, bassist Johnny Raggs and percussionist Jagoda hold up their end of the bargain without ever getting in the way of Montague's expressive voice and impressive guitar work, which owes more than a nod to both Etheridge and Hendrix.
Jagoda is particularly good at using bongos and tom-toms to keep even quiet songs percolating. Calling him a drummer seems like an understatement. Producer Kevin Bents steps from behind the board from time to time to add spare background vocals, guitars, and piano.
Though it's the funk that stars here, Hooked has its quiet moments. Except for Jagoda's soft percussion, you can almost imagine Montague standing alone with her guitar singing "Heaven" or "Monkey" or the title track.
Other bands - the late, great San Francisco band Wire Train, for instance - have tried to mine the depths of funk for a breakthrough and for the most part failed, not because the music wasn't worthy, but because the general population just isn't ready for groove-based guitar rock from the dark side. That's too bad for the general population, because with Jake it could be missing a lot more than just a bunch of great riffs.
