could some English person post the new WIRE's Kayo Dot review here please?
- Thread starter FuSoYa
- Start date
avi
W3RK3R
ok here is the review:
KAYO DOT
CHOIRS OF THE EYE
By DAVID STUBBS
It's heartening that so much of what purportedly has its roots in the 'Metal scene' nowadays is leaving behind the ancient trappings, the effete machismo, the hair, the tattoo parlour drivel and the Teutonic fonts and monikers associated with the genre, bringing with it only... the Metal. Kayo Dot (formerly and perhaps unwisely known as Maudlin of the Well), are a case in point. Although they vaguely arise from/have connotations with Metal/Goth, they're something else altogether. They're floating out there with the likes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Animal Collective, although vocalist and driving force Toby Driver occupies his own niche in that particular corner of deep space.
Choirs of the Eye takes the bipolar principle established by the likes of Nirvana to new extremes. These five tracks luxuriate agonisingly, convulse between near silence and primal, shrieking noise. Take opening track "Marathon," whose piledriving Metal is a pendulum swing away from layers of orchestration like crushed rose petals. Kayo Dot are hardly the first to engage in this sort of musical push and pull but rarely, if ever, has it been carried off with such concentrated beauty in place of squallish petulance or self-indulgence, pomp or preening.
"A Pitcher of Summer" is as heady as strawberry wine before noon, meandering quietly through glades before more sudden storms, long on intensity, short on stamina. These constant disruptions, however, prevent you from being lulled into ambient reverie and keep you alive to the lovely thunder of it all. "The Manifold Curiosity" and "Wayfarer" are similarly turbulent but again, the throb is as irresistible as it is disquieting. One oment you're suspended in a womb of prenatal bliss, the next, bursting out into the world in a Caesarian frenzy of Metal. One moment you're in some unearthly corner of Paradise with no idea how you arrived there, the next, the sky has turned black and the rain is coming down in stair rods.
Tzadik's executive producer John Zorn apparently urged Driver to think of this album in compositional terms. Driver, it seems, shrewdly resisted this pretension. More important than the structure here is his innate feel for tone poetry, as affirmed on "The Antique," whose fragile and shortlived piano passages and burdgeoning, swelling chords glisten with the tension of waiting for the bomb to drop. Utterly exquisite, utterly alive, utterly apocalyptic, this is an album with which you may well fall hopelessly in love.
KAYO DOT
CHOIRS OF THE EYE
By DAVID STUBBS
It's heartening that so much of what purportedly has its roots in the 'Metal scene' nowadays is leaving behind the ancient trappings, the effete machismo, the hair, the tattoo parlour drivel and the Teutonic fonts and monikers associated with the genre, bringing with it only... the Metal. Kayo Dot (formerly and perhaps unwisely known as Maudlin of the Well), are a case in point. Although they vaguely arise from/have connotations with Metal/Goth, they're something else altogether. They're floating out there with the likes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Animal Collective, although vocalist and driving force Toby Driver occupies his own niche in that particular corner of deep space.
Choirs of the Eye takes the bipolar principle established by the likes of Nirvana to new extremes. These five tracks luxuriate agonisingly, convulse between near silence and primal, shrieking noise. Take opening track "Marathon," whose piledriving Metal is a pendulum swing away from layers of orchestration like crushed rose petals. Kayo Dot are hardly the first to engage in this sort of musical push and pull but rarely, if ever, has it been carried off with such concentrated beauty in place of squallish petulance or self-indulgence, pomp or preening.
"A Pitcher of Summer" is as heady as strawberry wine before noon, meandering quietly through glades before more sudden storms, long on intensity, short on stamina. These constant disruptions, however, prevent you from being lulled into ambient reverie and keep you alive to the lovely thunder of it all. "The Manifold Curiosity" and "Wayfarer" are similarly turbulent but again, the throb is as irresistible as it is disquieting. One oment you're suspended in a womb of prenatal bliss, the next, bursting out into the world in a Caesarian frenzy of Metal. One moment you're in some unearthly corner of Paradise with no idea how you arrived there, the next, the sky has turned black and the rain is coming down in stair rods.
Tzadik's executive producer John Zorn apparently urged Driver to think of this album in compositional terms. Driver, it seems, shrewdly resisted this pretension. More important than the structure here is his innate feel for tone poetry, as affirmed on "The Antique," whose fragile and shortlived piano passages and burdgeoning, swelling chords glisten with the tension of waiting for the bomb to drop. Utterly exquisite, utterly alive, utterly apocalyptic, this is an album with which you may well fall hopelessly in love.
avi
W3RK3R
lizard
Member
"the effete machismo"
one of the things I hate most about much metal
"One moment you're suspended in a womb of prenatal bliss, the next, bursting out into the world in a Caesarian frenzy"
excellent
"Driver, it seems, shrewdly resisted this pretension."
haha Toby busted free from the machinations of the evil puppet master
one of the things I hate most about much metal
"One moment you're suspended in a womb of prenatal bliss, the next, bursting out into the world in a Caesarian frenzy"
excellent
"Driver, it seems, shrewdly resisted this pretension."
haha Toby busted free from the machinations of the evil puppet master
Baliset
guitar deity
Baliset
guitar deity
Yeah lizard, this part especially:
got me thinking a bit that the bands that are commonly hailed as 'doing the most for the scene' and a la Lord of Chaos touted as being the most influential (implication: good) on metal (Venom et al) are actually bands that have probably done more harm than good in the ways that they've influenced "Metal".
got me thinking a bit that the bands that are commonly hailed as 'doing the most for the scene' and a la Lord of Chaos touted as being the most influential (implication: good) on metal (Venom et al) are actually bands that have probably done more harm than good in the ways that they've influenced "Metal".
lizard
Member
yup like getting into an argument on one of these boards with a 17 yr old who dismisses you because you are not grym and tr00 enough, and therefore, not metalFuSoYa said:
"moonikers"
i hadn't noticed that before.
maybe it's time to start a campaign to chisel away the respect that those bands garner.. just a bit
lizard
Member
I do my best with my humble skills 
, in subversive ways. these people are easy to play with because they take this shit way, WAY to seriously.
, in subversive ways. these people are easy to play with because they take this shit way, WAY to seriously.
mindspell
vvv Jake's ass vvv
In the case of Venom, they didn't do it on purpose. The whole machismo thing with them was a joke, as most of their lyrics and antics. Yet a lot of dumbasses took it seriously and went along with it.
To think that a lot of macho/leather/spikes/evil look of metal comes from the gay s&m tendencies of Rob Halford is also really really interesting...
To think that a lot of macho/leather/spikes/evil look of metal comes from the gay s&m tendencies of Rob Halford is also really really interesting...
avi
W3RK3R
FalseTodd
Skirt Wizard
It is sad to think that a whole subculture of violence and desecration was laregely born out of a bunch of clownish bar-rockers looking to make a buck and get laid.
lizard
Member
oh why don't you pansies go back to your Rhapsody cds and leave the metal to those of us who eat metal and shit chains! grrrrrrrrrrrrr
Baliset
guitar deity
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