Mystery Jets are an indie band from Eel Pie Island, London. Yes. Starting off as a generic-if-skilled indie band, they eventually wholeheartedly embraced a sound reviving The '80s.
Members:
- Blaine Harrison – vocals, keyboards, guitar
- William Rees - guitar, vocals
- Kapil Trivedi - drums
- Henry Harrison – keyboards, guitar
- Peter Cochrane - bass
- Matt Park - pedal steel
- Jack Flanagan - bass
Former members:
- Tamara Pearce-Higgins – keyboards, vocals
- Kai Fish – vocals, bass
Albums:
- Making Dens (EP) (2006)
- Zootime (US only, includes tracks from Making Dens and Twenty One) (2007)
- Twenty One (2008). Lead track is "Young Love" featuring Laura Marling.
- Serotonin (2010)
- Radlands (2012)
- Curve of the Earth (2016)
- A Billion Heartbeats (2020)
Tropes
- Auto Erotica: Implied in "Hideaway".
- Band of Relatives: Keyboardist/guitarist Harry Harrison? Father of Blaine Harrison.
- Break-Up Song: "Flakes". It's a melancholy one—almost a "we-tried-but-we-were-never-meant-to-be" one.
- Brother–Sister Incest: A common interpretation of "MJ".
Word of God says it's so. - Clingy Jealous Guy: Subverted in "First to Know." He's very protective, but he doesn't want to hold her back.
- Erotic Asphyxiation: Some say the lyrics in "Behind the Bunhouse" suggest this, what with the imagery of choking, etc.
- Everything is Big in Texas: Radlands was recorded in Austin and features a map of the Lone Star State on the cover.
- Growing Up Sucks: "Umbrellahead." "Please don't turn me into a man", indeed...
- Hot for Teacher: The alternate reading of "MJ", word of God or no.
- Intercourse with You:
- "Melt" is probably one of the most obvious examples in music anywhere.
- "Flash a Hungry Smile" is possibly about oral sex. Or, well...um...allow us to rephrase. It is definitely about sex. The sex is possibly oral.
- Littlest Cancer Patient: Deconstructed in "Little Bag of Hair." Blaine Harrison has spina bifida (which isn't terminalnote but requires a lot of excruciating treatment all the same), and his childhood in and out of the hospital was not adorable and it did not give him precocious wisdom.
- Love Triangle: "He's 'Half In Love With Elizabeth' and he's half in love with you".
- Ode to Intoxication: "Serotonin"...maybe? On the one hand, MDMA (that's ecstasy/molly) is thought to work through messing with serotonin levels. On the other hand, it could simply be about anything related to serotonin, including just being, as they say, "high on life".
- New Sound Album: Serotonin embraced the synth-driven '80s influences tried out almost as a joke in Twenty One's "Two Doors Down" and turned it into a whole album. Also, the recording of Radlands in the US shows in interesting ways.
- Not Staying for Breakfast: "The Girl Is Gone" is nearly Exactly What It Says on the Tin: guy wakes up, his one-night stand is gone. He meditates on the subtle ridiculousness of the whole exchange.
- Retraux: Everything about "Two Doors Down," from the song itself to the over-the-top 80s-ness of the video
.- The video for "Dreaming of Another World" has a '50s-early '60s vibe.
- Silly Love Songs: Can you get much sillier than "I think I'm in love with the girl who lives two doors down" followed by an '80s-style rock sax breakdown?
- Spell My Name with a "The": Zig-zagged. Originally the "the" was there, but in a later logo it wasn't, but they kept using it from time to time, etc. It appears that the "the" is either there or not depending on whether you want it to be.
- Step Up to the Microphone: Blaine Harrison took most of the singing duties on Making Dens, but William Rees sings lead on some tracks on Twenty One. This leads to Vocal Tag Team, below.
- Vocal Tag Team: Starting with Serotonin, Blaine Harrison and William Rees split vocal duties more evenly, although with Blaine taking a little more.
