Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers Make a Powerful Pairing on ‘Breaking Point’

The pandemic hath wrought a lot of tour cancellations and album postponements, but it also proved to be the perfect time for a little experimental collaboration. And for Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers, that experiment became a bona fide side project — Jackson+Sellers, formally — and now, a debut album, Breaking Point. The golden-voiced duo connected the way all the kids do these days, over social media, and instantly found themselves writing songs that spoke to each other’s respective life experiences. But those expecting twangy country tunes will be met with thrashing rock and roll, amps turned all the damn way up.

Most of Breaking Point features Jackson and Sellers harmonizing, but the songs that really glow showcase the contrast of their voices, Jackson the milk to Sellers’ honey. Lyrics about an enticing love that’s just too toxic to work sit pretty next to ones about the need for freedom and independence. “I’m a green-eyed bitch / And I wanna get rich / Get outta my way / Cause I’m here to stay,” sings Sellers on a cover of Suzi Quatro’s “The Wild One,” a number that finds them taking turns on verses.

The album’s title track swaggers in with similar energy, a simmering dare to see what happens when these two are pushed to their edge. “The World is Black” longs for a love that shines bright as city lights, and “The Devil Is an Angel” is a go-for-broke blast of a Julie Wright cover that finds them getting savvy to a master manipulator.

Breaking Point isn’t all kiss-offs and head-bangers. The ballads are some of its sharpest points, like the bewitching “As You Run,” a Jackson-led song about letting go that sets her haunting howl at its downright prettiest. “Hush,” Sellers’ soft lullaby, is all jet-black beauty, and the two reach heavenly heights on love song “Fair Weather.”

Friendships and supergroups may come and go, but here’s hoping this one lasts a lifetime.