This is a review of "Shotgun / Icons" recorded by Juma. The review was written by Lauren Strain in 2006.

Apologies go out to the bassist of Juma, for I won’t be able to refer to either yourself, your instrument or your musical prowess at any point during this review, as my HiFi system has decided to commit an unfortunately-timed suicide and, last Tuesday, my Walkman headphones experienced a bit of a heel-on collision with a steel-toed boot. So, all I have left to play this CD on is a tin-can-alike laptop soundsystem. Therefore, I can’t really hear you. Sorry mate. Just thought I’d clear that up, like.

A panning, blobby wobble of spaceship sound slides into focus over stabs of six string and drums akin to the clattering of pots and pans around my sink before a nasal, stuffy yelp shrieks out “Nobody can feel this way but me-eee-ee-eee-eeeeeaaaayyyyiiiiieeeeee…”, or similar. And what way would that be? Annoyed, maybe, by those sticky vocals screwdriving a silver nail into your eardrum and sending equally sheer splinters of rusty metal guitars out to spark off in all directions? Bored, perhaps, by the tastily-hypnotising, infuriating, rash-like repetitiveness of it all?

Noticing any contradictions here? You bet. Pitching the listener somewhere between a barely-suppressed scream of “Please! Shut! Up! Now! You’ve! Said! This! Particular! Phrase! Quite! A! Few! Times! Already!” and an infectious, invigorating fit of desire to pop around in a deranged, orange-eyed, spunky blur of legs and limbs, Juma propel you into a limbo of like or dislike, grimace or grin, run away and cover your ears or keep moving. Then, after about eight minutes or so, they very kindly leg it out of here leaving you stood right at the scene of the crime, shaking and innocently blinking underneath their neon searchlights of screeching guitar and cackles of “Icons, shoot the icons, shoot the icons, FUCK THE ICONS.”

Cheers, lads. Now what am I supposed to do? Dance, I reckon. Murderously.