Olivia Jean takes the production reigns on
Night Owl, her second solo album. Arriving a full five years after her 2014 debut
Bathtub Love Killings, a record where she played nearly every instrument but found herself produced by Third Man Records head
Jack White,
Night Owl maintains an allegiance to all the groovy sounds that powered her first album. It opens with the chime of a 12-string guitar that bends itself to fit a surf-twist riff, and soon descends into squalls of fuzz, thundering tom-toms, and nods to girl group and bubblegum, along with the occasional wink to campfire country. It's a sound that's firmly within the Third Man wheelhouse, but
Olivia Jean doesn't quite follow a blueprint scrawled by
Jack White.
Jean cleverly draws connections between the American garage underground and the rest of the globe, covering both
the Flamin' Groovies ("Brushfire") and Bollywood ("Jaan Pehechaan Ho," best known to the Western world through its appearance in
Ghost World), and there's a stylish economy to her original tunes that lets them hook into the subconscious easily. Whether it arrives as a riff or a vocal,
Olivia Jean is enamored of melody and enchanted with vintage style, and the combination makes for a giddy blast of garage pop.