Labels: Greatest Records
Review by: MH
Old Kerry McKee is not that old and is a Swedish solo singer from Gothenburg doing a blend of folk, country and blues and playing about 45 different instruments all at once. I saw him supporting Self Defense Family in Kingston back at the start of this year. He had an acoustic guitar, a snare drum, a record player and various straps attached to himself so he could play them all simultaneously. I found his set mildly entertaining but he didn’t hold my attention throughout. Having not heard of him since then I was interested to hear him again when this came up in the list of stuff we had been sent for review. The songs are slow to mid-paced in the main and the sound is rough and unpolished with a kind of Americana sound mixed in. I am not sure what role the record player plays but it certainly adds an old school crackle to the background of some of the songs. There is a nice bleakness to the album too. A couple of songs stood out for me on here: “Hell Within My Chest” which starts off slow and more melancholy number; and “Soiled, Tattered and Thirsty” with its bigger beat and more distressed vocals. The vocals are probably the strong point here for me – I like how he sounds a little desperate and frantic on some of the tracks. The final track “Untitled” is a load of quiet noise notable only for the screams that appear at the end. I found him mildly entertaining live and similarly so here.