The second album by Milwaukee’s Jupiter in Velvet is an even brighter and more artistically cohesive effort than its consistently engaging debut, Screaming the Love Behind the Scars. Self-deprecation swerves into self-adoration with side routes into androgyny, erotic desire, Anglophilia and peacock-strutting fabulousness. Like a savvier Sha Na Na for post-Beatles Great Britain, Velvet distills a sonic fantasia of an imaginary time when pre-Young Americans David Bowie, Duran Duran, Adam Ant, Visage and T. Rex all shared the same Sunday afternoon BBC Radio One top 40. With nigh addictively sugary melodies and beats most danceable, Jupiter in Velvet makes glamorous pop at least as inclusive and scads more fun than Lady Gaga’s archer iterations to similar effect. Jupiter’s worth a trip.
