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Western Jaguar
Kaleidoscope
Jeffrey Trainor (British Columbia) makes shimmering, confident pop music under the moniker of Western Jaguar. We’ve been enjoying the drip of singles all year, and now the payoff has come in the form of Kaleidoscope, a tour de force of indie pop/rock that contains some of the finest songwriting, the most skillful playing, the most tasteful arranging, and the most immaculate vibes of anything we’ve covered in 2025.
This album packs a staggering number of great hooks and should-be hits into a tight package, with a couple of bonus tracks included in the Bandcamp version.
Right out of the gate, we get a muscular power pop gem with “Slow Death”, as Trainor’s smooth vocal intones we’re all dying a slow death - can you find some comfort in it? In between a steady wash of atmospheric guitar over an airtight rhythm section, there’s a flash of angry, fuzz-laden guitar that betrays the intensity of the feeling behind an otherwise languid delivery.
It’s an early sign of the depth of these tracks, many of which contain a similar dichotomy between the pretty soundscape and a gritted-teeth subtext that bleeds through in the vocal performance.
“Little Self Indulgent” keeps the vibe alive on a driving late-era Replacements rocker that’ll leave the words I can’t be here anymore, I can’t be, I can’t be here anymore echoing in your head. “Hornets” eases up on the gas, but not the power, its swanky groove wrapping you up in a tapestry of buzzing guitar and shimmering synths. Here again, for the third time in as many tracks, you’ve got hooks that might have been milked for a lot more run-time, but Western Jaguar is nothing if not a master of restraint and concision. You scarcely feel like you’ve got your teeth into the track before it crashes into the next.
Next we get something of a breathless interlude of gritty but effortlessly beautiful frenetic energy, as Trainor chants hit me like a hurricane, all I need is breathing space. It’s something of a coda for the crunchier, angrier top of the record, perhaps a clearing of the throat before things get more despondent, and more starkly beautiful.
“Holding On By A Thread” is undeniably the highlight of this record, and that’s not an easy bar to have cleared. It opens with a soft electronic groove under gentle synths, setting the stage for a text that is instantly unforgettable. I’m the reason your last stick of Nicorette is missing out of your tie-died sundress is such a phenomenal opening line. You’re plunged into an intimate conversation with the narrator as he paints you a melancholy picture, capped off with the hook I can’t get ahead, I’m holding by a thread.
Towards the end of the track, the rhythm section drops out briefly and a series of mournful guitars take over the storytelling, saying more in a brief instrumental than many of us manage to say with our words. It’s thrilling, moving, masterful.
“Helsinki” is a wry and genuinely clever inside joke for all the folks out there trying to make something out of an artistic endeavor. The music itself is - as we’ve come to expect by now - tight and expertly arranged, and the text is witty and endearing. I’ve got a lot of friends in Helsinki, but if you look close you’ll really see - they’re all a lie is something not many non-musicians will understand, but anyone who’s used to checking their streaming stats and getting unduly excited before realizing they’ve been captured by a botted playlist will have a smile on their face.
The home stretch of the record doesn’t lose a bit of the energy or the songwriter’s flex. “Pity Party” is another radio single hiding out on an indie album, with an addictive synth theme and a hook that will file itself away in your head and sneak up on you when you least expect it. “Flower Box” is equally polished and catchy as it unfurls a snarky relationship vignette.
“The Con Artist” is the final track on the streaming version of Kaleidoscope, and here we circle back to that Replacements vibe that drew me into Western Jaguar’s world the first time. The track is sparse and gorgeous as the narrator laments his own insecurities and fears - I’m a con, I’m a fraud, writing songs about things that don’t matter to me.
While we suspect it’s more of a meditation on impostor syndrome, if this is any sort of con, it’s the most convincing one we’ve ever seen.
Don’t miss the bonus track “Balance Beam” on Bandcamp - it’s a tidy and effective pop song that plays a bit like a rhyming exercise, and produces some really memorable couplets like where the hell is my inhaler? where are the fruits of my labor?
Kaleidoscope is a truly impressive picture of an artist that has reached some sort of mountaintop. Pushing forward from a work like this is a tall order, but we suspect that Western Jaguar has more surprises in store for us in the year ahead. In the meantime, any fan of careful songwriting, and fans across a wide variety of tastes will find plenty to love in this record.
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