Mission: Control!

After Jawbox's amicable split in 1997, frontman J. Robbins and guitarist Bill Barbot teamed up with ex-Government Issue drummer, Pete Moffett, to form Burning Airlines, with Barbot switching from guitar to bass duties. Mission: Control! the band's debut album, brilliantly channels Robbins' pop sensibilities through muscular hardcore riffs with insistent, rhythmic foundations. With its seamless, dynamic shifts, thick riffs and killer melody, 3 Sisters epitomizes the transition away from Jawbox's clipped, angular post-punk and onto a much more open-ended playing field. Barbot's bass work is a big surprise; Jawbox bassist Kim Coletta always rattled off cool melodies, but Barbot has a sharper and more intuitive sense of placement. His rubber-band lines do the dirty work on the slick Wheaton Calling, and tug on Robbins' riffs like a magnet in Pacific 231. Jawbox's music had begun to incorporate a greater range of moods by its final album, and Burning Airlines finds Robbins' melodies highly effective in a variety of settings: insanely catchy punk-pop (Pacific 231), furious Nirvana-esque rock (Sweet Deals on Surgery and head-spinning opener, Carnival) and arty dissonance (I Sold Myself In, the intelligently weird Crowned). Scissoring is the album's standout cut, with its wicked harmonic riff, bad-ass bassline and thrashy second-half. With rarely a dull or unoriginal moment, Mission: Control! is a very promising start to life after Jawbox. ~ Jonathan Cohen, All Music Guide