This came out in 2002 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
If comparisons count for anything, alt-pop trio JJ72 are in good, if uncertain, company.
Their self-titled debut album from 2000 had critics likening them to everyone from Radiohead to Jeff Buckley to Manic Street Preachers. Something tells me their sophomore album I To Sky isn’t going to help clear up matters. For one thing, the guitar-based Dublin outfit fronted by Mark Greaney still traffic in their own unique musical hybrid — thumpy grooves, choppy guitars and swirling space-fuzz vibes overlaid with gentle, melancholy melodies and singer-guitarist Greaney’s alienated-alien (or is that paranoid android?) whine. For another thing, this time out more than a few of these tracks have some of the sweeping grandeur of grand U.K. mopers like Coldplay and Travis. For a third thing, I To Sky was produced by Mark (Flood) Ellis, who has worked with Smashing Pumpkins and U2 — which means that now you can hear echoes of both those bands in cuts like Formulae and Serpent Sky. Maybe folks should just call them incomparable and quit while they’re ahead.
