CATALOG

NEWS

"Following 2008's bouncier, brighter Ropechain, Dead Zone Boys has Adamson and his co-conspirators upping the darkness and distress with effective results. Rather than coming off as a DIY R&B obsessive in the vein of Beck, this album has a distinctly industrial feel. While layered, tom-tom-heavy rhythmic patterns and otherworldly synths have been used on earlier releases, here they become the foundation of the album. Still apparent is Adamson's vocal pitch-shifting fetish, adding interesting timbres to the mix as the album progresses. "Phantom Don't Go," however, kicks things off with the most unprocessed vocals that we get, coming off primordially with its wallop of drone. Other tracks share a similar aesthetic, but there are outliers as well: the frenetic "You Cried Me" is a nice example, sounding like a folk duo with one member on crystal meth while the other tries to calm her down... Dead Zone Boys is worth some serious attention."
Tiny Mix Tapes

"Following last year's excellent Ropechain (then billed as Grampall Jookabox), David "Moose" Adamson returns to the fractured-funk and weirdo psych-pop of that release, but turns his major themes from ghosts, paranoia and Michael Jackson to casting images of urban decay against a zombie motif. But Adamson's lyrical preoccupations and early-Misfits obsession with evoking horror movie imagery only serves as impetus for his busy, frantic arrangements... The result is an unhinged and exciting take on layered indie rock that tangles itself in threads of electronic noise, garage-soul boogie, and crazed pop."
Blurt Magazine

"Smashing staticky drums and an aural mishmash or guitars, loops, squawking horns, warped samples (including one from fellow Hoosiers the Zero Boys) and even singing saw, Jookabox recalls similarly maximalist acts like TV On The Radio, Animal Collective or Neutral Milk Hotel, but Adamson's work has none of the calm composure of any of those bands. He and accomplice Patrick Okerson play, instead, with a reckless abandon and thrown-together feel that would ruin any act whose shrapnel didn't hit as accurately as Jookabox's. The result is an unhinged and exciting take on layered indie rock that tangles itself in threads of electronic noise, garage-soul boogie, and crazed pop."
Blurt Magazine

"Last year's Ropechain gave in to Jookabox's inner player with a few songs that were made just for the hip-hop ball and their debut was a blend of folk and eclectic experimentation; if anything, Dead Zone Boys is sort of like a mummified version of his previous albums with a hint of shrewdness."
Delusions Of Adequacy

"I used to think Dirty Projectors were bombastic. I used to think Parenthetical Girls were epic. I used to think Battlehooch were chaotic. I used to think these things, but it turned out I just hadn't heard Jookabox yet. These guys really Man (Man) up. And those Anticon-esque moments are just-plain confusing. I'm really just using these signposts because I'm lost, though (and where would us reviewers be without our signposts, touchstones, dead ringers and red herrings?)."
The Gumshoe Grove

"DEAD ZONE BOYS has a sound that electrifies hipster's telepathic senses when played in NYC hangouts almost like the band is in-tuned with their "inner-Williamsburg". Well, maybe because they're "real". Coming from the east side of Indianapolis, like most midwestern inner-cities a poverty stricken area, homicides, and racial tension. These are the places that the most awesome legends are made. DEAD ZONE BOYS gives you a taste of Indianapolis while enjoying beautifully violent bass and guitar notes that you can feel."
Newness Magazine

"The album's fuzzy sound is more substantial than Ropechain's - it's a well-mixed low-fi sound, with plenty of the low end on the "You Put A Spell On Me"-esque R&B ballad "Evil Guh" and just as much tinniness from vintage-sounding synths and Chipmunk falsettos... Characteristic of Jookabox's work is a kind of street poetry, rough-hewn, blunt, repetitive, yelled somewhat crazily or in multi-tracks, which tells of a yearning to do good compromised by the appeals of the dark side... Adamson's use of multi-tracking and loops is reminiscent of Zappa or Ween in its playfulness; he slows his voice down to create a creepy feel, speeds it way up to give energy to the fast-paced "You Cried Me," the album's breezy, potential hit single that has Adamson back on acoustic guitar."
Nuvo

"David "Moose" Adamson's third full-length release under the Grampall Jookabox (newly shortened to just "Jookabox") moniker covers much of the same ground as its predecessors, amiably mixing the wry, sophomoric, pitch-shifted vocal attack of Pod-era Ween with the white-boy beats of Beck and Har Mar Superstar. Like 2008's Ropechain, Dead Zone Boys revels in the kind of thick, two-dimensional sounds that populate most home-recorded projects, and its to Adamson's credit that the manages to balance the sludge with some truly inspired vocal takes and enough homemade clicks, clangs, and industrial (as in bombed-out machine shops and liquor stores) atmospherics to score an apocalyptic, Indianapolis-based first-person shooter, which is kind of what Dead Zone Boys feels like. Albums like this pretty much ask you right away to either turn it up or throw it out, and there's no denying the polarizing nature of D.I.Y. indie rock, but Jookabox is consistently visceral, darkly funny, and wholly unpredictable enough to warrant more than a cursory spin around the neighborhood."
All Music Guide

"Listening to Jookabox is like entering a scene in Trainspotting or SLC Punk, when the madness becomes so overwhelming, dialogue can no longer handle the transmission of the details and must give way to the music. "
The Silver Tongue

"Since we didn't ever really know what a "Grampall" was, we're glad Jookabox decided to forgo the forename on new album Dead Zone Boys. He didn't, however, lose the frenetic junk drum circles and doubled zombie falsettos that made the previous two long players as fun as shooting roman candles out of sedan windows."
RCRD LBL

"Prepare to have your head blown clean off by an exploding concrete ball of ferocious bass drums and guitars that'll shock your spine with their intense therapy. Jookabox's new album is a kaleidoscopic martyr; a hell-raising alert signalling the end of human existence. David Adamson's third album, released by Joyful Noise in tandem with Asthmatic Kitty Records throws the doors wide open, tearing away any remnants of old-blues and psychedelic folk left over from his two previous albums (2007's Scientific Cricket and 2008's Ropechain) and cuddles together multiple genres of music that normally sit worlds apart. Hip-hop beats align with glam rock vocals ('Phantom Don't Go', 'East Side Bangs/ East Side Fade'); trashy RnB vocal effects feed across urban country hymns ('Glyphin' Out', 'F.I.T.F. #1'); Gospel singers join in chorus with howling sirens ('Don't Go Phantom') and folk guitars side with rockabilly rhythms ('You Cried Me'). It's a colourful mess, but it's also one of the most beautiful musical fusions of recent time. (9 out of 10)"
Einstein Music Journal

"Indiana natives Jookabox launch a third full-length album that is a study in the primordial stew of avant garde music effortlessly blending a hodgepodge of intriguing sounds. Get your mind numbed with their genre bending and stirring mix-o-logy."
Smother

"the project's third album is his best and most complete so far"
My Old Kentucky Blog

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