One-minute reviews – 6: Kittie, The Very Best, Panther, El Perro Del Mar
Back, due to no demand at all. “The new low in music criticism” (trademark pending). You can be brief. You can be brutal. But can you cut the mustard when there’s only 60 seconds on the clock and you’ve never listened to the album before?
Kittie – In The Black
Never realised before that listening to Soundgarden gave me a hard-on. Rock that rocks yet somehow fails to rock. Weird. Maybe it’s the ridiculous “digital horses galloping over the hill” drum sound. Maybe it’s the sheer bullying mundanity of the made-to-measure guitar riffs.
El Perro Del Mar – Love Is Not Pop
Everything soothes. Love is not pop, argues the Swedish songstress succinctly – and indeed, love is not pop. Pop is not love. Guitars are not guitars. Echoes do not echo. Tinkling gentle background chimes are not wind chimes are not a substitute for a big meaty phat bass sound. Guns for love, I say. Guns for love.
Panther – Entropy
More saturation. More piano. More American bands who’ve listened to the same bloody three Beach Boys albums as Animal Collective. More boy vocals sung like they’ve been muffled by beards and woolly cardigans. This is the music your eccentric uncle Jack railed against. (Apologies to Panther if they’re not American.)
The Very Best – Warm Heart Of Africa
Features a dude from Vampire Weekend, a lady called M.I.A. and some dude from Africa. Sounds precisely like you’d expect. That’s 25 seconds of my life irretrievably wasted, never to return.
