Andrew Jackson Jihad split with O Pioneers!!!

A little while back, No Idea Records put out a split 9" between the awesome bands O Pioneers!!! and Andrew Jackson Jihad. I don't think I've posted anything about either of these bands before, due to the fact that neither of them have had a release since the beginning of this blog, but they're both amazing bands. Andrew Jackson Jihad are like this godly folk punk group from Arizona, and according to Tim McGowan, O Pioneers are the "best band ever". He also says they're like a 90s emo band now, similar to The Promise Ring or Jawbreaker. "He used to sound like Crimes era Against Me!, but as soon as Eric got a rhythm section, he dropped that shit." This is almost like as if Tim wrote this whole review, at this point.

The Andrew Jackson Jihad side of the split begins with the song "This Is Why I'm Hot", which will probably make you think it's their older song "Brave As a Noun" for the first few seconds; then you realize it's not. This song features the typical Andrew Jackson Jihad style of lyricism. Straight forward lyrics with a sense of humor, sung in a sort of wailing voice by vocalist Sean Bonnette. The instrumentation is mostly acoustic guitar, with some electric guitar thrown in to do some lead work. And of course, as always, Ben Gallaty on upright bass.

Then, for some reason, the second song is done in a very Hispanic style, and sung entirely in Spanish. I only remember some Spanish from high school...and I don't think it's quite enough to translate this song and figure out what's being sung about here. I promise I heard the word burrito, though. Honestly, this song isn't very different from the first one musically. Oh, I hear the word guitar in Spanish also! I was also just informed by someone in the comment section that this song is a This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb cover, but the original is in English.

The last song on the Andrew Jackson Jihad split features what I can only assume is now a staple for AJJ releases, a kazoo featurette! Where else can you go for one of those? Solid.

O Pioneers rock this split for me, though. It's vocalist/guitarist Eric Solomon (Texas) accompanied by the band Junior Battles (Toronto). Tim was right. This is definitely closer to The Promise Ring and Jawbreaker than it is to Against Me! anymore. These songs actually remind me a lot of Tim's band Ghost Aviary, which is pretty cool. The second song, "Oak Island", definitely kills it on this split. It's sloppy, filled with heavy guitar and heavier vocals being yelled by Eric. There's even this whole like twinkly emo bit that goes on halfway through the song, and it's pretty excellent. It leads into this short, awesome guitar lead and then goes back into the swing of things with the ending of the song.

The last song on the O Pioneers side of the split starts off with this noisy intro full of ambient guitar playing. It's of course broken up by Eric's infamous yelling. This song is darker than the rest on the split. Seriously, everything about it is heavy as shit, too. The lead parts sound kind of like the guitarist is expressing feelings he had when finding the dead body of a serial killer victim. Or something akin to that. Tim was right, this shit is definitely a far leap from the stuff Eric started out playing. It's definitely the right direction, too.

This split is gold. You can get it from No Idea Records! Rejoice!

-Idle

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