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Album reviews Music

Jamaica – No Problem

JAMAICA hit the Drake on Tuesday (April 19). See listing. Rating: NNN


In the same way that Phoenix owned the summer of 09 with their poptastic Wolfgang Amadeus record, their French countrymen Jamaica look to be positioning themselves for the same feat this year with the appropriately named No Problem. Jamaica is Antoine Hilaire and Flo Lyonnet, who, like Phoenix, have a Daft Punk connection: DP’s sound engineer, Peter Franco co-produced alongside Justice mastermind Xavier de Rosnay.

So now that we’ve just name-dropped every cool French musician of the last decade, you’re thinking there’s no way this could go wrong. Yet occasionally it does. The rock songs are taut and exuberant, and the album stays full-throttle through 11 tracks. I Think I Like U 2 is the strong first single, while Short And Entertaining has a chorus that should make Thomas Mars green.

But there’s abundant filler here, and de Rosnay and Franco go overboard with effects, samples and 80s flourishes. Hopefully, de Rosnay saved a few surprises for Jamaica’s main summer album competitor, the new Justice.

Top track: I Think I Like U 2

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