Jesca Hoop | The House That Jack Built

An Awesome Third Effort from the Northern Cali Native

Following up from my previous review of pop singer Kimbra’s debut album, this week another pop singer has entered onto my radar, California singer Jesca Hoop. Fortunately for me and you all, her newest album The House That Jack Built dropped June 25, and it is truly a doozy of an album. Ranging from rock & roll rebellious, blues soul bearing, to even macabre love, Jesca Hoop’s album covers all of the spectrums and still leaves you waving your hands in the air, screaming, “Awesome!”

Starting with some powerful, echoing vocals reminiscent of Florence & The Machine, Jesca delivers a strong opening with “Born To.” It’s one of the most powerhouse songs of the album with a folk-like instrumental in the background which complement Jesca’s bellowing vocals. This comes as a surprise as the following song Pack Animal comes off as more subdued but captures a sort of dreamy quality and is also pleasant on the ears. Jesca continues to deliver a strong performance throughout the album and even brings a little bit of rock & roll into Jack with songs such as Peacemaker and Ode to Banksy, of course with most albums that I’ve reviewed, there’s a couple of songs about love, especially the macabre Hospital (Win your Love) about hurting yourself for attention from your lover which caught me off guard because the music sounds so poptastically fun! The last couple tracks slow down into the folk music centered genre, with the exception of the bluesy Dig This Record (my personal favorite of the album) and are a welcome addition to the crazy, fast and heavy tracks of the first half. Out of all the songs, the one I didn’t feel as connected to was the title track. It just didn’t seem to be as impressive as the rest of the songs and after a couple of listens, I found myself skipping over it to get to the more joyous songs.

Overall it’s a very well put together album, with strong vocals from Jesca and a wide variety of songs that bring a lot of flavor to the album and make it enjoyable to listen to over and over again, as it feels different throughout each play through and always keeps me mesmerized.

Check out the official video for the first single “Born To” and visit her website to download the single for free.