Like most young people, Bogor trio The Jansen started playing by emulating the sonic assault of its musical heroes: mid-tempo 70’s punk rock in the vein of The Ramones, The Buzzcocks and The Undertones. 

And while the band continues to rely on power chords and melodic sensibilities, its new album—the band’s third—Banal Semakin Binal (roughly translated to “banal but wilder”) sees the band unashamedly delivering more hooks and singalongable choruses that bring to mind local alternative pop legends such as Pure Saturday and Rumah Sakit. The political lyrics of its early material has also been replaced by poetic rants about mundane, everyday life.

In just a few weeks after its release, Banal Semakin Binal has gained a lot of traction, both in streaming plays and critical acclaim from various Indonesian music publications. Initially self-released by the band only on cassettes, the album was picked up by large independent record label and distributor Demajors for CD and digital release after The Jansen got selected as one of the three winners of a Jameson Connects x Demajors program. 

While still unmistakably punk rock, the band has taken strides in terms of its sound and production. On the band’s new album, the guitars and vocals were doubled, resulting in a wider, more detailed sound. “It’s definitely better, and more proper than our previous outputs, which is something we wanted. And we had the budget for it, so [we thought we] might as well,” Adji says. 

But the band still stuck to doing things its own way, such as recording everything live—minus the layering—to get that raw, imperfect sound. 

“From our first EP to this album, we’ve never used a metronome. I don’t know why, but music that doesn’t sound perfect, with the drums being just a tiny bit off sounds better to my ears,” Tata says.  

Music inspirations: For their new album, Banal Semakin Binal, The Jansen creates melodic and hooky lines to go along with their power chords reminiscences of bands like Rumah Sakit and Pure Saturday. (Courtesy of The Jansen) (The Jansen/Courtesy of The Jansen)

Arguably, one of the biggest surprises of The Jansen’s new album is its 100 percent Indonesian lyrics and the ‘poppier’ melodic singing that comes with it. “On this album, for the first time we started with the lyrics first, then the music,” vocalist Tata says. 

It was years of trial and error until the trio got the formula right. From its very first release, which was written entirely in English, the band gradually inserted more and more songs with Indonesian lyrics but without ever fully committing – all the album titles before Banal Semakin Binal had been in English—until one day, after two years of a creative funk, Adji, the band’s main songwriter came up with lyrics for 10 songs at once, all written in Indonesian featuring a more poetic, less in-your-face approach. 

Initially, vocalist Tata was not sure it would go well with the band’s punk sound. 

“It’s hard to find lyrics that convey the message we want but also aesthetically fit the 1970s punk style,” Tata says, “It’s not that I didn’t like Adji’s poetic lyrics, but I wasn’t ready to go that route. We even had debates.” 

Tata eventually had to adjust his singing style due to the nature of the language such as having longer syllables, different pronunciation and tone, which would actually give the band a unique and yet familiar sound to Indonesian listeners. 

Citing twee pop acts Shop Assistant, Talulah Gosh, the label Sarah Records and the C86 compilation as the band’s influences for vocal style, The Jansen ended up writing more melodic and hooky vocal lines to go along with its power chords, which at times—unintentionally—bring to mind the Indonesian indie pop classics of the 90s such as Rumah Sakit and Pure Saturday.

“I had to change my vocal approach, I couldn't afford to be as brash as I have been,” Tata continued, “While not directly influenced by the band, Adji used to play Rumah Sakit all the time when we were roommates. And those bands are amazing at delivering Indonesian lyrics, and they’re good role models to aspire to.” 

Out now: The new album sees the band unashamedly delivering more hooks and singalongable choruses than before. (Courtesy of The Jansen) (The Jansen/Courtesy of The Jansen)

In the past, The Jansen often opted for more subversive, political lyrics—archetypical for the genre—with song titles such as “Fascist Cops” or “No Future”, but Banal Semakin Binal is a much less direct affair, with the band singing about common, personal topics such as falling in love or the naivety of youth. 

What makes it different though, is that songwriter Adji wrote his lyrics like a collage of words, mixing random feelings and experiences of the past that have nothing to do with each other, giving the listeners plenty of room for personal interpretations. 

For example, the chorus of the album’s main single “Mereguk Anti Depresan Lagi” (downing another antidepressant) goes “downing yet more antidepressants / just like you said the other day / you always impress me / much like the brownies you sent me” is about two completely unrelated things.

“It’s about a friend of mine who has to consume antidepressants to regulate their mood and be productive, but I sneaked in a few lines about getting brownies from a girl on my birthday. It’s completely random,” Adji says laughing. 

The simply titled “7456” is a song about having fun, referencing Adji’s mother’s university class of 1974-76 which is still very active and gets together every three months. In parallel, the song also references a scene from Stephen Chow’s comedy movie Sixty Million Dollar Man and Jimi Multhazam—singer of Morfem and The Upstairs—as the king of pensi (high school music festival). 

“It’s about how older people can still party and have fun,” Adji explains. 

While it would be easy to accuse the band of “going soft,” Banal Semakin Banal is clearly the result of a band that has spent years honing its craft and has made a conscious attempt to challenge itself to get out of its comfort zone while still retaining its core identity as a punk rock band. 

“After we finished writing all the songs, I found my own formula,” Tata recalls, “No matter what the songs are like, whether it’s poppy or whatever, if we’re the ones playing it, it would still sound like The Jansen.”