#13 of 200? I feel privileged.
Hey, what’s up with the sound quality? Sounds like a demo that has been recorded onto vinyl. Fortunately, Yaphet Kotto exhibit no other qualities of being a demo-level band.
For starters, they give away a free sticker of a bull with their record. Wait a second! That’s not the reason this record is great. The real reason is that they have a photo of the band playing, and the guy in the foreground attacking his guitar has arms like tree trunks, real meaty sideburns and he just plain rocks. Hang on, that’s still not the reason. I’ll come to the reason now.
Yaphet Kotto play melodic emo hardcore which has all the best influences. And I mean ALL of them. On opening song, “The Killer Was In Government Blankets” – one minute they have a full on crying singer getting desperate over the driving hardcore, and then it all mellows out and gets distant and post-hardcore. And I’m like going – it’s a fucking cross between Indian Summer and Torches to Rome and a whole bunch of those old cool emo bands on one of those records I got recently but I can’t think which ones right now. Yaphet are from Cali by the way, hence. their sound. They do more of this fretful crying and intricate hardcore on all the other songs too. “Crane Lifting Crane” gets all fast and pile driving and mind blowing. Screw your eyes up tight and shake involuntarily to it. Finally, “Car Part Three” gets grooving and herky-jerky with a non-crying singer, um, Antioch Arrow is sort of my suggestion on this one but not too much, ok? Did I mention the bull sticker?
I’ve now spotted the incredible picture in the packaging of hundreds of kids sitting in a huge exam hall. Now that brings back memories. The lyrics don’t make much sense to me, but from the look of the insert they are furiously anti shit stuff, like racism and homophobia, as any sane person is, but it’s always nice to see it written down. They also say “Yaphet Kotto is part of no scene. Enjoy music for what it is, not who it is” which is the perfect sentiment. Although if I am to abide by that, I have to invent a new genre to pigeonhole them in for the purpose of review, and that will have to be: “Yaphet Kotto.” And I guess that’s not so useful unless you heard them already.
If it wasn’t for the demo quality of this recording, I would threaten to kill you all if you didn’t own it, and seeing as they made 200 of these and Collective doesn’t have that many readers, it wouldn’t have been an unreasonable request. Look, get the album instead, it’s on Ebullition so it’ll rock, and I will be getting it as soon as I can. Quite possibly this is the best band that no-one other than HeartattaCk zine is telling you about yet as far as I can make out. Also, you get a free sticker of a bull with this record.