Los Angeles based Adrienne Vanderocker is a sonic visionary, scurrying about like a time traveling, genre hopping jackrabbit in her debut album Jupiter's Kiss. This Vanderocker collection travels through a swirling mess of imagery and sound in a dozen tracks that tries to be a bit of everything.
It becomes difficult not to name drop the underlying influences (Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Johnny Cash, to name a few) but more than just a tired mashup of its predecessors, Jupiter's Kiss succeeds in sounding fresh and focused. The progression from the 1990's alternative rock throwback of "Without The Light" to the dance punk frenzy in "Smoke & Mirrors" fit in Vanderocker's own brand of alternative – one which incorporates ska, surfer music, baroque pop, hard rock, and folk music together seamlessly.
The record feels immensely visual, the enticing little cherub arrow of Cupid’s Sting and penetrating “adversity in a soft magnetic cloud” from "She Become Me" are but a few of these moments. Similarly the record also evokes strong imagery. Take "You’d Better Walk" for example, which could very well have been a jukebox joint pairing Mrs. Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega in some Pulp Fiction. Then a string of tracks play out more subtle images in what might be a mystic western cowboy rides ("Jupiter’s Kiss"), a bedtime lullaby ("I'm Home Now"), or taking a slow drive off into the sunset ("One Breath Away").
Vanderocker’s style heightens exponentially in her music videos. "Kissing Booth" revels in its alluring, swing happy dance in a dark hazy smoke of flashing lights and quite literally a world covered in red lipstick kisses. "Cupid’s String" distorts split screens in black shadows of Rorschach blots and synchronized gymnasts and rogue archers of desire. Clearly the woman is hard at work to etch her way in to the hearts of all who hear her, in all her style and swagger.