Jaed - 'Dirty Days' (Instant Karma) Released 13/03/06

Purging her demons through music, Jaed's lead singer Vanessa Eve tackles tales of parental abuse, drug addiction and life living on her native Melbourne streets on the debut album, ‘Dirty Days’.  Forget any notions of self pitying, depressed drenched downers making their way onto this album, Eve's take on her life is instead doused in an abundant degree of black humour that makes for cringingly raw and shockingly graphic lyrics that could make even a porn star blush.  Dirty Days is most defiantly not for the faint hearted as it attempts to both offend and shock with every line.

Possessing a pop grunge factor, Jaed appear to resemble a concoction of Hole, Garbage and Republica throughout the album.  'Gutter Girl' holds all the same pop attributes that made Republica a teenage girls desired rebellion band whilst 'Someday' and 'My Way' has the same scuzzy, gritty edge sound of Garbage's Shirley Manson and Eve does her best Courtney Love impression with 'Kiss Me (Mickey)'.  And herein lies the problem, Jaed fail to create their own sound, instead they resemble a rehash of prior punk grunge bands and although they pack enough of a punch to escape any Avril Lavigne comparisons, the sad truth is that their talent is masked behind their musical heroes.  Added to this is the fact that  although at times Jaed's lyrics display a maturity and uniqueness that stems from Eve's own experiences, their determination to simply offend and shock completely destroys any credibility they had managed to create.  Their stripped to basics, explicitly harrowing take on issues instils a realistic quality to Jaed's music but at times the lyrics are crudely unlistenable serving no purpose at all, except to appal and scandalize, something Jaed do not have to rely on and should not have to lower themselves to do.   47 second opener 'Catherine' for instance tries to add a dose of humour with its lyrics of "You think we're junkies, but you don't wash your undies" but instead it verges on the brink of ridiculousness and unfairly tarnishes other much better.phpects of the album. 

In the end Dirty Days is an album that is going to appeal to wannabe teenage rebels.  It offends, it shocks, parents will detest it and it retains enough integrity to stop Jaed being lumped in with Avril and Son Of Dork, all the essential ingredients to ensure it's blasted from teenage bedrooms everywhere.