Jealous Creatures

Jealous Creatures, Little Heaven Big Sky

Once upon a time, I tried to write a screenplay for a road movie. It pretty much sucked, frankly, but the part of the process I found myself enjoying the most, weirdly, wasn’t the actual writing of the story but coming up with the imaginary soundtrack for my hypothetical movie. I had a ball trying to scrape together — in the pre-MP3, pre-Internet age, mind you — a cassette tape of songs that sounded to me like windswept, desolate, desert highways at night. None of it was country, per se, but a lot of it ended up sounding “Western,” at least to a point, and it was all great, great stuff.

Listening to Jealous Creatures’ debut full-length, Little Heaven Big Sky, I find myself right back there at my boombox, listening to tunes by Sand Rubies and Cowboy Junkies and excitedly dubbing them onto a tape right where they sounded best in the all-in-my-head story. On the band’s previous EP, there was a hint of Western-sounding loneliness, but here the Creatures have grabbed onto that with both hands and held it tight. The drifting, far-off guitars and Hirsch’s melancholy, sometimes bitter, Margo Timmins-like vocals make for excellent road music, just like that long-trashed tape of mine; the sound of the distant highway to Somewhere Else. Continue reading →