AMERICAN GURL - Kilo Kish: Review
Kilo Kish
is a musician with many talents. She's both a singer and rapper as well as a songwriter and her genre ambitions have covered quite a large territory over the years. She's also been able to consistently collaborate with a stream of talented artists throughout her career and has a long history of working on tracks with Vince Staples.
Review by Lav:
While I've been listening to Kilo Kish for quite a long time now I was never really blown away by her music, until her 2019 REDUX EP. It was a weighty and uncompromising series of club flavored electro pop bangers that didn't sound particularly like anything she had done up to that point, but it had me excited for what she would do next. That excitement only grew when single after single after single in the lead up to AMERICAN GURL continued to hit. After hearing the singles I was expecting this to be her loudest, most intense collection of hard-hitting electro pop to date, which it is. But there's also a little bit more to this album than initially meets the eye.
Let's talk about those singles first. The lead single, title track and basically the album opener really sets the tone for everything. It starts the album off with a bang brought on by the pummeling drums, clapping and Kilo's short vocal refrains. That instrumental prescence turns out to be pretty unrelenting through the song and even when it isn't these blown out keys help fill every moment with sound. Tie it all up in a good hook and you've got a great song. Bloody Future made my singles of the year list last year and I think I like it even more now than I did then. The hook is impossibly catchy and the lyrical theme is beyond charming. While I wouldn't call it the most lyrically dynamic song here I know every single word to it for no other reason than I just can't stop listening.
New Tricks was the single that really kicked my hype into overdrive because it is just ridiculously good. From the thick layers of vocal effects to the eerie glitchy beat the song has more soundplay than I can even keep track of. The whole song it rattles from one great refrain to another and by the way Vince Staples serves as a sort of narrator/hype man, delivering his own charming additions throughout. This might be my new favorite Kilo Kish song ever. Finally there was No Apology which I also loved as a single and it reminded me of her last EP more than pretty much anything else here. It does have a bit more of a pop flare to it but I think that goes over really well and the refrains are insanely catchy with different vocal styles being used throughout the song that work really well together.
Death Fantasy was released as a single right before the album dropped but I don't think I even heard it until listening to the full thing. It's a more reserved track with Miguel bringing some R&B flavor to it. Despite that there's still a prescence of booming drums though they are deployed in a much more distant fashion. The song is pretty loosely formatting but I certainly like the sound it delivers. Distractions III is another song I like early on the record. While it may not have the catchiest refrains I do like how bold it is with the metallic clanging and trap drums. I also think the lyrical portrayal of excess and greed that the song uses is a compelling one.
The second half of the record isn't quite as good as the first but it does contain a few good highlights including some of the singles and Intelligent Design. It has a wiry synth line that morphs its way throughout the track and a dizzying Jessie Boykins feature. I think it actually lives up to the level of intensity that the singles promised and it has emerged as one of my favorite tracks here.
Attention Politician has quite a kooky beat that grabs me right away and it turns out to be the best part of the song. The hook is simple but it leaves a lot of space where Kilo is basically just humming her way to the next core refrain. Despite that there are still some things I like about the song, especially the really confident bridge in the back half which is a big individual highlight. On The Outside is another track with an interesting dichotomy of pop refrains and speedy looped drum lines. There's actually a pretty strong progression to it which I like quite a bit and it's actually grown on me every time I hear it.
Choice Cowboy is an interesting track but I wasn't crazy about it when I first heard it. While the way it builds up through the verse before exploding with crashing drums onto the hook is cool, the hook itself doesn't do much for me. Weirdly enough it reminds me a ton of Slowthai's feature on the recent Denzel Curry album where the vocals don't really get to deliver the hook at full force because they are so soaked in vocal distortion. On top of that the stop and start format of the hook does start to wear me down more and more after a few listens. Finally the only song I don't really care for at all is Super KO Love the most purely pop song on the record. It's one of the only points where I don't think the vocals really translate well especially on the hook. That is particularly bad for this song because the hook gets repeated over and over again throughout.
AMERICAN GURL also has a loose concept to it surrounding classic arcade video games. It has both an intro and outro that imply the whole thing is a game being experienced by players, and this is backed up by samples and sounds that would fit in with retro games. Thematically this plays out as more of a statement on individualism both personally and artistically so it isn't a concept album in terms of telling a story as much as it is in terms of consistent themes and sounds.
While this record has a really clear high end and a number of songs that don't quite live up to it, at the end of the day it still has that high end. Most of these songs are great, catchy and anthemic pieces of electro pop with varying degrees of experimentation throughout. Kilo Kish continues her improvement as a songwriter and a musical conceptualizer on this record and now has the makings of a really great run of releases. If anything AMERICAN GURL made me an even bigger fan, and even more excited to see what she does next. 7.5/10
This cover is a great Instagram post but doesn't really work as an album cover. I like the way the skin tone is highlighted because everything else is so light but there could have been something else more interesting added. There's no other branding which makes it seem like nothing more than a cute photo. I'm a little disappointed because it has the potential to be elevated. 4/10
For more electro pop check out my review of Charli XCX's Crash here
