Album Review: We Were Promised Jetpacks – A Complete One-Eighty

An acoustic reworking

Scottish indie rock band We Were Promised Jetpacks has released a 24-minute EP through their record label Big Scary Monsters. The project is the follow up to their 2021 record, Enjoy the View. The EP reimagines five songs from Enjoy the View, providing a more acoustic sound that sounds drastically different from their usual indie rock sound.

“Fat Chance (EP Version)” is the first song on the project. Compared to the original, it is low-key and feels much more acoustic. The new mix makes the lyrics feel much more melancholy. Lead singer Adam Thompson sings in his thick Scottish accent, “I’ll calculate the odds / They aren’t in my favor / So I’ll carry on like this / And I can make amends later.”

The last track on the EP is a different version of “Fat Chance,” a remix done by Zoe Graham. This one has a bit of an awkward pacing. It sounds like a dance remix, but the vocals do not translate very well into a dance song. About a minute in, there is a beat drop and the vocals cut out and it sounds a little better, but once the remixed vocals return, it sounds out of place.

The second track is “If It Happens (EP Version).” This track has a similar treatment as the first; it sounds sadder than the original. The song is about accepting things that happen in life, and relinquishing control. Thompson sings “All I wanna do is get high and enjoy that view.” In the context of the song it makes it sound like he is very numb and feels defeated. He sings of some unnamed event, “I’m not gonna feel any shame about it anymore.”

A second version of “If It Happens” is also in the EP, and it is a remix done by the Manchester Orchestra. The mixing of this track feels a lot more atmospheric. Overall, it is not incredibly different from the first version, but it is still enjoyable nonetheless.

“Nothing Ever Changes (Andy Monaghan Remix)” is the fifth song on the EP. Compared to the other tracks, it sounds much more emotionally raw and is more sentimental. Thompson sings “If nothing is ventured / Nothing is gained,” which makes it feel like a song about taking risks and trying new things. This is very different from the sentiment in “If It Happens,” which is a lot more uncaring.

Overall, A Complete One-Eighty EP shows some of We Were Promised Jetpacks’s best songs reworked into acoustic versions, with a few additional remixes as well. The tracks are pretty solid, and maintain a coherent theme of introspection and how one person can view themselves in the grand scheme of things.