Rapid Fire Reviews: Soft Spot Indie Bands, The Kills, Timber Timbre, Geese
God Games - The Kills
It's been a while since we heard from The Kills with their last album Ash & Ice dropping back in 2016. I do like the album but it's been even longer since they last really sounded like they were hitting their stride. On top of the excitement I already had going into the project I think the singles are a particularly strong bunch. Lead single and opener New York in particular is a ripping indie rock jam with more muscle than I even knew the band was capable of. Generally speaking, I enjoy almost all the moments where they return with that intensity. For example, I fell in love with the third single 103 pretty much the moment I first heard it rush into a grinding, punchy chorus.
Shockingly, it's some of the quieter moments on the album are some of the least impactful. That's very surprising given the band has long made their name serving up some brilliantly patient tunes and their masterpiece Goodnight Bad Morning is notoriously creeping. That's why I was surprised that the swelling and exceedingly dramatic LA Hex sounded just okay to me when it dropped as a single even as it hits an angelic high across the final minute. Tracks in the middle of the record like My Girls My Girls and Kingdom Come aren't exactly low key, but they lack the energy to make up for some rather silly songwriting and hooks that get old quick. The exception is the slinky, nostalgic closing track Better Days whose dark demeanor being cut through with wiry guitars is a perfect sound to conclude the album on. Unfortunately, my favorite tracks from the album are the ones I had already heard going into it. I'm certainly not complaining that it has highlights, but the ultimately incomplete tracklist makes this album feel like it isn't much of an improvement over Ash & Ice, if an improvement at all. 6/10
Lovage - Timber Timbre
If you also read the last review then get ready for some deja vu. I've liked quite a bit of Timber Timbre's music so far, especially in the early 2010s, but their most recent effort back in 2017 came off as a bit flat to me. That's why I was pretty excited to see if the enigmatic project would return to form here after a long absence. I got even more excited after hearing the lead single Ask The Community which absolutely creeps along similar to some of my favorite tracks from the band's back catalog. I'm also such a sucker for any track taking aim at the disturbing malaise of Suburbia, which this song does in veiled but vivid metaphors. That's far from the only time on the album that it taps into the project's trademark eeriness either. Songs like Mystery Street and Sugar Land have sonic elements that you could lift out and put into a Hold Steady bar rock anthem and yet when Timber Timbre do it, it's relentlessly eerie and unsettling in a way I find pretty captivating.
Often times the record is willing to get even icier. Stops is a far more chilling ballad throughout and while the track that follows it Confessions Of Dr. Woo starts out with glimpses of sunshine and glistening keys, it pretty quickly descends into a long instrumental passage highlighted by these haunting echoey keys. And the synth lines get even frostier from there on the chilling back half of Holy Motors. While this album isn't perfect, I like it a lot. Much like the band's music has always been a unique itch nobody else can scratch, this project once again seems to provide something uniquely unsettling. I definitely see this album as an improvement on Timber Timbre's previous record and one that returns to the project's most isolating instincts. 7.5/10
3D Country - Geese
I heard this album when it came out a few months ago and I liked it right away. But as I tried to explain it I went through this weird process where intellectualizing it made me somehow like it less. The project is almost resistant to thought and analysis in that way. it has such a frenetic energy and willingness to follow its sonic ambitions on a whim that asking "why?" feels like entirely missing the point. So if you'll allow me, I'm about to do an objectively bad job at explaining why I like the parts of this album that I do, in an attempt to do the best job I can at capturing its essence.
The title track on this album 3D Country is what first won me over because it sounds like a Foxygen cover band that plays in a wild west saloon. From the magnetic vocalizations to the soaring backing vocals and the soaking of absolutely every element in as much melodrama as possible this song is the continuation of a long and beloved streak of over-the-top indie rock that I love. Describing this album as melodramatic may sound like a diss to some but in this sense, I really think it's a quality neutral judgement. The most rambunctious moments on deep cuts like Undoer or Mysterious Love also come with a handful of theatrical poise that certainly sets the group apart from many of their far less performative indie rock contemporaries. Making heads or tales of this record is obviously pretty difficult. Take a song like Domoto whose reserved verses erupting into these harrowing bright choruses reminds me of plenty of great Britpop songs. But the song also features some of the most garish and unlikeable sonic motifs on the entire album and the results are difficult to parse as a whole. That isn't always the case with the deep cuts though. Songs like the enigmatic wonderful Crusades are nothing but fire from start to finish. Obviously trying to assess this album logically was never going to work. But to put an end to a very messy review of an even messier album, Geese is a band you should absolutely be paying attention to. Even though, like Spirit Of The Beehive before them, their restlessness can sometimes lead them away from their strengths, at their best they are strikingly unique and unwaveringly exciting. 7/10
