Jaya The Cat - Live 2024

Roots reggae, ska, punk rock: the three main ingredients of the cocktail that Jaya The Cat mix together on their new album "A Good Day For The Damned", which will be released on November 17, usually conjure up images of sunny beaches, the cool laid-back attitude of California or at least the sultry haze of Florida. This makes it all the more surprising that the band around mastermind and frontman Geoff Lagadec and drummer David Germain has its origins in the rather mild climate of Boston.
The fact that Jaya The Cat chose the European metropolis of Amsterdam as their new headquarters in 2003 and brought their creamy sound mix to the party people from there on four albums to date goes together as well as piña colada and Caribbean sun. However, you wouldn't think that the band would have taken too much inspiration from the laid-back flair of the Dutch capital. Because anyone looking for a comparably explosive, versatile and dynamic live band from the skapunk sector should have a magnifying glass in their luggage - hundreds of shows between sold-out headliner tours, support slots for bands such as Beatsteaks, Less Than Jake or Sublime and prestigious festival appearances at Ruhrpott Rodeo, Pukkelpop and Lowlands are proof enough of the quartet's musical firepower. On the follow-up to 2012's programmatically titled "The New International Sound Of Hedonism", Jaya The Cat are not only summery smooth, but also with a clear edge and politically motivated. Lagadec and his party community add set pieces from blues, soul, dub, dancehall and hip-hop to the changing mix of noisy punk rock, rootsy classic reggae licks and energetic ska on the album, which was recorded in Berlin in just one month. The main thing is that the result is loud, has drive and cuts a groovy figure at any party. With their stylistic diversity, the Dutchmen-by-choice ultimately manage to get eternal grumblers and genre purists at least bobbing along - if not skanking or doing laps in the pit. Heartache, love, politics, madness, optimism: "A Good Day For The Damned" has everything you could wish for in a driving, moving skapunk record.

Support: Piñata Protest