Hailing from Encintas, CA, the Jade Shader brings together parts of popular San Diego bands, Boilermaker, No Knife and Tanner. Chris Prescott (of No Knife) and Terrin Durfey (Boilermaker) got together in 2003 while on hiatus from their respective bands. That was the genesis of what would be become a seven-song EP released this month: Curse of the Tuatara (out now on Seattle's Sonic Boom Recordings). There are traces of the members' roots in previous bands. But - and I can only compare to my fondness of No Knife - the Jade Shader has a more open-ended feel to it: great tempo shifts, stops and starts and layered guitars. "Dissonant while tuneful," is how the band's bio puts it.

San Diego's tradition of catchy dissonance continues. Featuring members and ex-members of No Knife, Boilermaker, and Pinback ? amongst others ? The Jade Shader is the logical continuation of the sounds San Diego has been stewing under its vibrant sun for the past 20+ years. It is jazzy dissonance, catchy uncatchy melodies, gymnastic rhythms, and jagged sweetness that you?ll learn to love after repeated explorations. With ambitions to not only bring together the members? love of rock but of music ?stretching back across the ages,? Curse of the Tuatara hopes to embody as much of Slint?s sinewy attack as it does 20th century minimalism. The result? Another success story for good ol? S.D. Take a listen? really listen, and be rewarded by its subterranean layers.

When you put ex-members of No Knife, Rocket from the Crypt, Boilermaker and Tanner (plus a touring member of Pinback) into a practice space together, you're bound to end up with something highly unique, as the Jade Shader prove with their debut EP. It sounds a bit like their old bands, a bit like their San Diego scene counterparts and a bit like some post-hardcore bands of yore, but most importantly, it sounds really damn good.
Rocks like >>> Pinback > Jawbox > No Knife

The Jade Shader is a San Diego supergroup. They'd laugh if you said that, but the fact remains that when ex-members of seminal indie-rock bands including Boilermaker, No Knife, and Tanner get together to rock out, you get super music from a supergroup. With only seven songs, you could be tempted to hold your breath until you hear more. Go ahead, there will be more to come very soon. Until then, go get this EP, then do yourself the pleasure of seeing this band live - you'll never forget the experience.

A modest debut (though obviously scorched by ambition), this debut EP from San Diego's The Jade Shader touches a number of musical bases without ever landing securely on any of them. Bookended by a pair of loose rambles in "Minnesota" and "Scallywags", it traverses a variety of moods and attitudes, many of which seem to reflect the tempestuous nature of the band's punk past. "Cha Cha Choo Choo" and "Spacegoat" are propulsive, high-octane slabs of pure bombastic overdrive, while "Eraser" and "Buzz Genie" are more measured and mercurial, overcast with a mood that's dark, foreboding, dire and disturbing. The skittish "Master of the Harpies" bridges the extremes, but inevitably, one can't escape the feeling that the Jade Shader is a band still in search of their sound.

When someone brings up the whole San Diego thing, the bands that'll tend to get mentioned are Drive Like Jehu or Swing Kids or Three Mile Pilot or something else on Gravity. Here at the Collective, we love all those shenanigans, but there is an excellent branch of San Diego hardcore / indie rock that falls secretly below the radar. Boilermaker are still a hideously under-rated band, and Terrin Durfey from the 'maker lends his glorious vocal talents to this record. And Boilermaker are indelibly connected with two fantastic yet now long since defunct San Diego labels - Goldenrod, and Wrenched. Ignore those labels and you will never be exposed to such brilliant bands as the Jehu-mo 100 Watt Halo, chat-mo-meisters Calabash Case or the all over the shop-mo Interstate Ten. And thats not even allowing for the glorious stoner-mo dudes that were Chune, who were on Headhunter. All produced top notch San Dieg-mo lps, with a sound that often leaned on the mighty Jehu but always brought something new to the party. BUY THEM ALL! Or miss out on some really great music that has gone sadly un-loved and is unlikely ever to have a 'revival'.

What has all this got to do with the Jade Shader? Very little, I just wanted to ramble a little about some bands that I think more people should check out. And from this point on in the review, I shall restrict my rambling to this cd and eulogising Boilermaker.

Its very difficult to review this cd in seperation from that band - Terrin's vocals are so distinctive, and so impressive that he naturally comes to be the focus of anything he appears on. And that is obvious from the very outset here, with the gently persuasive "Minnesota" ambling along, with softer instrumentation and a little keyboards action building up to momentary louder passages. It picks up from the 2 new Boilermaker songs on Leucadia left off very nicely, before Jade Shader rushes headlong into the rockage of the blistering "Cha Cha Choo Choo", which is probably my favourite song on the cd. This one owes the most to its San Diego-mo heritage, with a pounding rhythm and speeding guitars carrying everything along at quite a pace. "Eraser" then suddenly drops everything back down to a drift that would have nestled quite nicely on 11 songs, with a moody tone that is carried through some more rousing periods by louder vocals and warm bass. "Spacegoat" (?!) is probably the most catchy song on here, a mid-paced, rocking effort with killer dual guitar, before everything settles down again for another "11 Songs"-esque reprise in "Buzz Genie". So good!

Well, if you've grown tired waiting for the vaporous new Three Pile Pilot record, and you miss Boilermaker as much as I, then this is essential. I'd recommend it to way more people than that though, for its simply one of the best things I have heard in quite some time.