A sarcastic and sardonic Icelandic indictment of the lack of integrity within the music industry. Jakobinarina’s English vocals have a strong accent which adds to the feeling of contempt thrown up here, and the target is a good’un. Seemingly borne out of the oh-so-fake indie pop punk genre popular with trend setters and chart watchers, Jakobinarina (pronounced yakob-in-arena) have a better understanding of the Punk part of their genre labelling than most. With an anger reminiscent of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin playing Top Of The Pops, This Is An Advertisement provides a healthy antidote to newspaper punks who think media attention on their shitty behaviour covers for their shitty music. Here the punk is in the message, the sniping vocals criticising industry moguls, peers and you; the guitars baiting you to get a kicking if you even look at them funny; keyboards snorting speed round the back and the drums smashing fuck outta a phonebox.
The underlying attitude is there but it isn’t smashed over your head in a horrific bile filled onslaught, rather it comes away as being a rousing and inspiring track, managing to avoid wallowing in the negativity and bitterness of it’s message. The success is not half down to the band’s trick of balancing the fine line between disaffected intelligence and drunken imbecility—tongues are in cheeks here but the whole thing works because, underneath, that bitter negativity is most probably real.
