Jabba - Vice album review

Efficient racket-making from the Arctic Circle

Cover art for Jabba - Vice album

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“The only rock band in Tromsø”, say Swedish provincial power duo Jabba, who peddle rapidfire, Big Business-going-nuts-in-a-dustbin-like noise rock. The pair formed over 10 years ago so it’s been some wait for their debut full-length. It’s not immediately obvious what they have spent those years doing on the strength of Vice, but at least six of them must’ve been spent cutting away the chaff from their mammoth riffs. Here are eight, mostly three-minute blasts of only the essentials: weight, grunt and very little else. Jabba are no Big Business in pyjamas, though, and tracks like the osmium Mathlete and fuzz-enveloped highlight Rat in particular sound like Unsane missing a member, while closer Drugs sounds like Black Cobra if you’ve just suffered a severe head injury.