Review Summary: "Djin" is an album that is very consistent with the band's previous work. It is a very catchy "garage/noise rock" album with some great dirty punk riffs and solos complimented with an amazing and unique female voice.
For those who are not familiar with Queen Adreena (or Queenadreena as they are known now), they are a 4-man rock outfit from London who formed around 1999 with Daisy Chainsaw's former singer Katie Jane Garside and guitarist Crispin Gray. The band released their first record "Taxidermy" back in 2000 and later gained some fame after releasing probably their most criticly aclaimed and beloved record "The Butcher and the Butterfly" in 2005.
The noisy punk-ish sound that Daisy Chainsaw had is still present in Queenadreena but you can definetly hear that the band went for a much more "serious" approach to the music this way around.
Djin was released in 2008 with fairly no promotion at all which led to many missing out on it. The album's length is consistent with their previous releases and so is Queenadreena's familiar "garage rock" noisy sound complimented with Katie Jane Garside's unique vocals.
The album is filled with very catchy punk riffs and noise filled dirty guitar solos and you would not expect any less from Crispin Gray who has firmly established his excellent guitar sound over the years.
Pete Howard provides his drumming skills on this album as well, unfortunatly right before leaving the band. The drumming in Queenadreena has always been simple but effective which is the case with many bands that have that "garage rock" sound.
When it comes to the bass, in a lot of bands it's just something that is in the background, it's important but not vital. That is not the case here where it's present and always solid and in some tracks provides more than the guitar which creates a very good mix between instruments in the songs.
Katie's amazing voice is as strong as ever on this album and I would say that it feels like it hasn't aged a day since "The Butcher and the Butterfly". Both the soothing calm singing on softer tracks like "Night Curse" are present and so are the glass shattering high screams on tracks like "Lick". Her vocal range is quite breathtaking at times and that is no different when it comes to this album.
Garside's lyrics are also back in Djin where it's a mix between some realy psychadelic and odd elements as well as some lyrics that feel more personal.
The production of this album is realy no different from the previous ones where you have a realy dirty guitar sound and sometimes a bit more muffled vocals, however that is done on purpose to create this garage rock/punk sound. That beeing said both the vocals and the instruments can be heard crystal clear so the noise does not take away anything but rather adds to the whole experience.
Djin is an album quite similar to "The Butcher and The Butterfly", however it also has some different elements to it. This time around they put in a bit more experimentation to some of the tracks, for example in "Pretty Fish" they use a xylophone which realy reminded me of some of the stuff they did in "Eleventeen" and "Taxidermy". The experimentation does not take up a whole lot of space but it's still a welcome diversion even if in some tracks like "Life Support" they tend to drag it out a bit.
Overall "Djin" is a solid album that carries the band's familiar sound and takes both elements from their early work as well as their more later stuff. The musicianship is excellent throughout the whole album as it's been for a while with the band. I guess I would say that "Djin" is more of the same you would expect from Queenadreena. There are some crums of different elements added in which separates it from the other releases but overall it is very consistent with their previous work. If that is a good thing, it really comes down to a personal preference.
