Kingston: Black and Bloom (Aeroplane)

 |   |  <1 min read

Kingston: Lotto
Kingston: Black and Bloom (Aeroplane)

If you don't listen to ads you'd not know these locals with cloud-piercing shouty choruses have songs helping sell V, Pepsi, KFC and a Ford Kuga.

Both those latter hook-filled heavyweights (Good Good Feeling and You Want It? respectively) are on this 14 song album which is big on “whoa-whoa” or “oh-ho-oh” hooks, forward momentum and songs which drill themselves home on machine-gun drum fills and burn-out guitars.

Which is thrilling – singer Dan Gibson is genuinely powerful and distinctive -- but the sheer breathlessness and those overused “whoa-ho” shouts shows them mining a narrow New Wave vein (Round We Go a chip off the Vapours).

Although they can be just as convincing when they step away from the obvious, as on the more measured Sincere and the psychedelic-pop of I'll See the World where guitarist Scott Cleary too-briefly reveals another side.

(Although I think the opener I'm Gonna Be With the King has a melodic line which borrows a mite to much from Spul Asylum's Runaway Train.)

With American production sheen and mixing, this – which sounds very international – certainly comes searing out of the speakers (turn it up to 11 and stand back) and you can't deny they know their way around a short, sharp adrenalin-fueled pop-rock song.

Especially if it works in a celebratory, air-punching and shouty “Oh-ho-oh”.

Like the sound of this? Then check out this

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Drive By Truckers: English Oceans (ATO)

Drive By Truckers: English Oceans (ATO)

After albums which redefined Southern rock – notably Southern Rock Opera, Decoration Day and Brighter Than Creation's Dark – the Truckers lost their way a little. Perhaps the... > Read more

Larry Morris: Amigos (LMM/digital outlets)

Larry Morris: Amigos (LMM/digital outlets)

Larry Morris once said his best album was 5.55am of the early Seventies, which went unreleased at the time when he went to jail for a serious drug offense. He may be right, but listened to now... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Plastic Bamboo (1978)

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Plastic Bamboo (1978)

A little over four decades ago the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra released his debut solo album Thousand Knives Of Ryuichi Sakamoto. It was at the time... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . .  Richard Fariña

Elsewhere Art . . . Richard Fariña

The New York-based folk singer Richard Fariña was an interesting figure: right up until he got on a motorcycle in '66 and crashed. He'd been around the boho folk scene with the Baez... > Read more