| CD REVIEW K.O. Kaine |
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Band : K.O. Kaine Whenever I come across a band of which I reviewed a previous album, I like to look back at what I wrote back then, and then direct the reader to that article for additional info. But when I went to look at when the review was posted for this Wakefield based (situated some 17 kms South of Leeds, in the North of the UK) band's 2006 debut mini-album Accelerator, I could not find it on the website...looks like the editor-in-chief lost that review somehow, because I'm dead-certain that I delivered it to him on that April 16! Well, what can we do? Give you that review now? Well...alrighty then, here goes...K.O. KAINE : "Accelerator" (Casket – Copro – PHD): After the demise of their former band Freak KO, guitarist Michael Krone (who's worked as a successful producer, session musician, and music lecturer, running also his own Rock school project) and drummer Matt Larkin decided to team up in the Summer of 2002 with singer Ad Phillips and bass player Trevor Nicholls, go in against the mainstream music crazes, and create a band merging the early decadent '80s formulas of Glam and Hard Rock, mixing them with a more Inductrial and contemporary styling of modern Metal and Alternative music to form a Glam Sleeze Industrial Hardcore hybrid.....Ad, in that viewpoint, was the most important addition to the line-up, because not only is he a trained singer, able to go from soaringly clean to incredibly rough (say Death) and vrutally screamed (say even Black), he is also an accomplished synthesizer player (his work can be found on a number of projects, including one with Glen from One Minute Silence, and Hardcore act Last Days Of Revenge). After releasing 2 CDs on their own the band set about looking for a good label to further enlarge their fanbase, and ended up signing to Casket Music/ Copro. A decision about which they may well be content, for this kind of hybrid Hardcore is right up their alley.....THe band's first official release is only a 7-track, 30-minute affair, but it leaves the listener panting and wanting for more after the very first listening session! Ad's vocal acrobacies are truly unsurpassed, and the many musical mood changes follow each other like there's no tomorrow! You truly have to hear it to fully understand what is entailed here! The problem is...once you've heard even pàrts of the songs, you're gonna want to hear móre, and then you'll want to listen to the songs again...and again...and you'll probably end up buying the mini-album on top of all your other favourites of the month!!!.....Points: 94/100 Well, not only did the mini-album (which got a worldwide distribution through Plastic Head)get very favourable reviews (to which mine should've been added at the time, bloody hell!!), with as direct result an increasingly larger fanbase in both the Far East and Europe, but also demand came for a follow-up full-length! So, in late 2007 the band (again produced by Mik Crone himself) hired an industrial unit and began recording what would become the new album. Together with the mastering process done at Monster Lab Audio (known from having handled Deftones and Die So Fluid, to name but those) in Sacramento (California), the process took a whole 8 months to realize, but the end result is certainly bigger, better, and even louder than the mini-album! The band went somewhat further in their experimentation drift, incorporating church organ and reverse recorded guitars in the track "Women, Butterflys and Snakes"...and that's only óne of the examples mentioned by the label. There's more tricks the band used, of course, like a very prominent slap bass and more articulate layered recording, but really it would be a pity to take away the potential listener's pleasure of seeking out all the little details him(her)self. Of the material they recorded, 10 songs were chosen, making the total listening time of the album come to just under 35 minutes. I would've liked even more, but there we are! Have yourself a merry little listening session of the band (or in case you already know them, of their second official release) by surfing to myspace.com/kokaine666, where you'll not only find audio for two songs (plus one off the mini-album), but also a video for the aforementioned "Women,...", shot by the Ash TV production company, and meant for both promotional and commercial purposes. Certainly a band meant for bigger things, and as far as I'm concerned: I'm now completely convinced of having found a new band to watch out for in the future! In other words: "yet" another addition to that "Best Albums Of 2008" list of mine. K.O.Kaine certainly deserves it!!!! 98/100 Tony. |