Labels: autumn jams – Internationale – parade of spectres – This One’s For the Crew
Review by: Samuel Fowler
I won’t make any comments about how this has been in the pipeline for
about eighty years. That would provide a silly start to a review, so I
shan’t do that. I first came across this band when I bought the Battle
of Wolf 359 Split, which was really quite good. One of those rare 7s
you might spend the best part of an hour jumping up to flip and flip,
making you look like you have some highly specialised form of ADHD. I
don’t have to get up and flip this as often as that though, “cause
it’s a bigger record, which is handy.
I think Kaddish secretly know me, and what I like too well; why else
would they start off a record this way? With a wry grin “Sans Doute’
trots smartly off the line, guitars hissing all over the place. Quick
break, some jingles, singing comes back with twice the sincerity..
Without a pause we’re then straight into the second track, where it
sounds like Kaddish have suddenly found 10 extra guitars lying around
the recording studio, and decided to play them all at the same time.
It’s completely fucking brilliant. It’s like all the bits I love about
something like Louise Cyphre, where the song just gets really REALLY
intense.
I think what really lifts this record up is how inventive it is. It’s
not just two sides of frantic harsh emoting, the tempo keeps swinging,
one minute it’s full tilt abrasion, then suddenly the pace drops
softly humming away something like Catena Collapse. There are points
where the vocals are almost chanted, the way they round out the record
is night flawless. You know when you see a really awesome set from a
band live, and right afterwards this weird temporary silence descends
where people look slightly wide eyed at each other thinking
“shitohwowthatwasprettyphenominalyouthink?yeahmetoo!’ This record
ends just like that. Serious.
I should also mention that as with the previous split, the other thing
that makes this record more compelling than just on a musical level is
the thought given to the packaging and the thought provoking
themes/words that run throughout, even if I can’t entirely decipher
them all. I’m going to have to steal a comment I’ve seen in
conjunction with Kaddish a few times to this to sum up. Extremely
original I know, but Scotland, You just lost your best kept secret. If
Kaddish don’t see fit to play a few shows round and abouts the place,
I’m not only going to spit my dummy out, but proper scatter my toys
everywhere, and try and tip my pram all the way over.