Original but not memorable

Actor and musician Caleb Landry Jones is as bizarre and inventive in his songs as he is on screen. The Texas-born actor has been writing music since 2007, the same year he made his acting debut in No Country For Old Men, and has come a long way in both arts. A recipient of Best Actor awards from the Cannes Film Festival and AACTA, Jones has starred in productions such as Breaking Bad, X-Men: First Class and Get Out. Musically, Jones’s sound has been a gradual development alongside his acting career. He wrote some 700 songs before partnering with Sacred Bones Records to release The Mother Stone in 2020 – an hour-long production that felt like a vaudevillian psychedelic rock extravaganza. The album was praised by artists like Caroline Edwards of Clash, who called it “unlike anything else out in music right now … artistic at its core, and more so, a cathartic and worthwhile experience.” Subsequently, Gadzooks Vol. 1 emerged as a psychedelic, surreal and freakish collection of songs. Gadzooks vol. 2 (via Sacred Bones Records) continues the unnerving madness of the previous album with more unpredictable, feverish originality, sometimes to a fault.

Each song feels like a different room in a carnival “fun-house” that slowly turns into something scary — from a grotesque room of mirrors to shifting floorboards and dark rooms of distorted voices. Musically, guitar, bass, drums, strings and horns collide in a dry, 60s sound reminiscent of Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles, complete with asymmetric panning and Jones’s whiny British accent. The whole album is pervaded with the feeling of a good dream turned into a nightmare, the perfect example of this being the end of “The Shanty Shine” as the music descends into hell with tortured strings and a strange, distorted chant.

The lyrics take on a warped and disturbing tone, with the meaning of most lyrics being heavily veiled. Like the ramblings of a madman, Jones sings disordered lines like “A marvel only unto not his mother but himself.” With somewhat less-cryptic lyrics, songs like “Little Lion Blues,” “The Shanty Shine” and “Georgy Borge (The Termite)” make more of an emotional impact and seem to deal with isolation, rejection, depression and addiction.

Unfortunately, despite its originality, the new album suffers the same ailment as the last two: the songs are not memorable enough. As Pitchfork’s Cat Zhang said of the similarly afflicted Mother Stone in 2020, “It’s interesting, even fun while it lasts, but you probably won’t return.” In the absence of a defined structure, memorable hooks and decipherable lyrics, the depth and ingenuity of the production, curiosity and sheer shock value are the sole factors inviting enough for a second listen. While fans of Vol. 1 will probably find Vol.2 an interesting addition to their collections, it’s hard to say whether first-time listeners will find enough to encourage their return.