Scene magazine, Cleveland, OH
October 16th, 1997
by Christine Young

There should be a label on the Jellybricks' KINKY BOOT BEAST: THIS IS AN INSTANTANEOUS SUGAR RUSH KEEP INSULIN AT HAND. Being the descendants of pop music that they are, the Pennsylvania quartet shows everything they've got on this collection of quick, sprite-pop tunes, each filled with jumpy rhythms and jaunty lyrics. It's a formula that works thanks to musical and vocal togetherness. Guitarists Larry Kennedy and Bryce Connor share credit for the bevy of sweet licks on nearly every track.

With four-part harmonies that are blessed unions unto themselves, each of BEAST's tracks hit the veins like a Mountain Dew I.V. The driving rhythms and whirling guitars on the opening track, "Miss You," set the pace of this 14-song debut. All good pop bands write about girls, and lead singer/chief songwriter Kennedy makes no exceptions. His "Girl" seethes with early Beatles guitar riffs, with an interlude that brings ex-bashing to new heights. "Growing Girl" steals jangly Byrds riffs that play up the absurdity of the snappy retort, I guess I got too literary for you/But it's hard to write a new cliche. The swirling organ at song's close is icing on the cake. The syrupy ballad "Wash Away" has thick gooey harmonies and shows a softer side of the adrenaline driven Bricks.

KINKY BOOT BEAST has a dark edge, kind of like burnt barley sugar, sort of bitter but sweet on the swallow. Bassist Garrick Chow and drummer Laine Wehler push forward with a steady, driving beat on "Ugly You," a mocking take on a favorite cheerleader rant. The Bricks plunge through this and the equally forceful "Hit The Ground." It's a dark, emotional bloodletting that's more [Bob Mould] Sugar than anything [Matthew] Sweet.

To talk about the Jellybricks is to talk about near pop perfection. Call it an overboard description, but after one listen to KINKY BOOT BEAST, there will be no argument. On the final track, "Undercover," with its Mary Tyler Moore "you're gonna make it" reference, the Bricks have outdone themselves. To gently end the disc, they revisit their flawless harmonies on "Wash Away" with the lyric, If the rain is all you're asking from the skies/Can it wash away the hurt you feel inside. If that's all the Jellybricks are asking for themselves, they're setting their sights too low.

Leather time in The Jellybricks' 'Kinky Boot Beast'
by Andy Brown

WZZO's 1996 Backyard Bands Contest second-place winners, The Jellybricks out of Harrisburg, Pa., have released a 14-song debut disc. Kinky Boot Beast echoes a great deal of sounds from the early '80s - from the truly alternative European punkers like Stiff Little Fingers, The Vibrators and The Undertones, to the more mainstream leather wearers like The Ramones, The Clash and Social Distortion, and even beyond to the guilt-by-association commercial Elvis Costello.

This Primitive Records release reminds me of my audio pleasures during the early 1980s. These were my late-junior high, early-senior high days when I was detaching myself from my older siblings' musical influences and defining my own taste. Although punk rock's major wave was waning, this was what I associated myself with.

Kinky Boot Beast is split 50/50 between fast, sub-three minute, guitar-driven rockers and slower, melodic, harmonious ballad-types. Both types of songs on this disc are crafted in such a way as to be radio tunes. The Jellybricks certainly have the "catchiness" aspect of writing down, as shown on each and every track.

Songs Miss You, Girl, Hit The Ground, Ugly You, Real Life Story, Growing Girl, Who Is God and Undercover are peppered with punk flavor. Heard throughout these songs are catchy guitar riffs, driving drumbeats, steady bass lines and screaming vocal refrains.

Slower songs Nothing, Wash Away, Be The One, The Clock, The Last One and Wasted Hours all clock at over three minutes, except The Clock (2:52). Even though they're over the three-minute commercial taboo mark, these songs effectively attract and keep your attention.

While the majority of Kinky Boot Beast's songwriting is done by guitarist/vocalist Larry Kennedy, bassist Garrick Chow helps out on The Clock and Chow and drummer Laine Wehler combine on Undercover. Guitarist/vocalist Bryce Connor rounds out The Jellybricks.

Four songs, Nothing, Ugly You, Girl and Miss You are holdovers, by popular demand, from The Jellybricks 1996 debut six-song EP tape. These songs received the call on Kinky Boot Beast after positive reaction from airplay on both commercial and college radio stations throughout Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The Jellybricks' recordings can also be found on compilations Passage (1996) featuring Growing Girl on Delta Housing, Inc., Harrisburg, and The Green Room ... A Compilation (1997) featuring The Clock and On To You on Rite-Off Records, Harrisburg.

Kinky Boot Beast was produced by Dale M. Epperson and Larry Kennedy; engineered and mixed by Dale M. Epperson at The Green Room, Harrisburg; and mastered by Dave Saia and Dale M. Epperson at Sonic Recording Studios, Philadelphia.

Copyright © 1998 Regional Network Communications, Inc.

Mode Magazine
July 1997
by Mitchell L. Hillman, Jr.

What do a million fisherman and the Jellybricks have in common? They each have the same number of hooks. If the Polins honor all that is or was British pop, the Jellybricks owe their ancestry to a wizened lineage of American power pop.

Kinky Boot Beast makes me hearken back to the days of the Minnesota scene, circa 1987 &emdash; when the Twin Cities offered rock history with Husker Du, The Replacements and Soul Asylum. It's even reminiscent of Boston whose best example of this would be the Lemonhead's Lick, or any number of Mitch Easter and Don Dixon's Drive-In productions from the prolific south. And those bands go back to Big Star, Cheap Trick, Punk and so on, ad infinitum. Beyond such comparisons (as I am merely reminded of this history) Larry Kennedy (guitar, vocals), Garrick Chow (bass guitar, vocals), Bryce Connor (guitar, vocals) and Laine Wehler (drums, vocals) combine their ample talents for a fourteen song collection that should receive national attention.

Behind the pop facade and the hook-happy instrumentation the intelligent lyricism of these songs borders on poetry at times. For instance, the clever wordplay in "Be the One" is rhythmically mesmerizing. The CD booklet invites the listener to follow the lyric sheet and, "Sing along with The Jellybricks." After doing just that, my amazement for this album deepened. Lyrics that look as though they could never respectably fit in a song sideways are pulled off with the greatest of ease. You've gotta' respect that kind of mean feat. In four words: Brilliant American Power Pop.