jail weddings Four Future Standards EP (digipak CD, £11.75)

If they aren’t L.A.’s biggest band, Jail Weddings definitely have L.A.’s biggest sound—an nine-person-deep rock ‘n’ soul revue that feels like the Pogues as produced by Phil Spector, a soundtrack to a Hollywood-gone-Babylon left unloved and unexplored since the last notes of X’ Los Angeles LP. Their 2010 full-length Love Is Lawless was gigantic, the kind of thing that should be a film (directed by Billy Wilder) but becomes an album instead. L.A. Weekly correctly called it “a big, fine mess of weepy, quavering, hiccupy hurtin’ hurt, plowed through with a way-tough punk rock theatricality and welcome good humor.” Now Jail Weddings return with a leaner line-up and a new EP called Four Future Standards. Recorded through the fall and winter of 2011-2012 by Mark Rains (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Waylon Jennings), Four Future Standards reinforces frontman-architect-drill sergeant-and-mad-genius (oh, and singer) Gabriel Hart and his returning core members . And this time, the songs (in a way) are all love songs : The raging Scott Walker-meets-Ziggy Stardust cabaret rocker “Overnight,” or the collision of Gun Club guitar and Shangri-Las melodrama that lets “Good Book” make death into the break-up to end all bitter break-ups, or the punked-up Del Shannon-style story of regret and revelation in “Red Light Rhythm.” Or especially “(There’s Nothing Worse In The World Than A) Crying Girl,” an unflinching last-call operetta that could have been written by Warren Zevon, produced by Nick Cave and recorded by Roy Orbison … but only after a bleary night playing Iggy Pop’s “Turn Blue” until the needle gave out in a wisp of smoke. In these four songs are love as sickness, love as delusion, love as warning, love as righted wrong or wronged right—even love as total helplessness before impending doom, as seen through the lens of an upturned bottle. Track Listing: 1. Overnight 2. The Good Book 3. Red Light Rhythm 4. (There’s Nothing Worse In The World Than A) Crying Girl