Review Summary: I've got a right to chase a dream.
Malaysian alt-rockers Kyoto Protocol certainly know a thing or two about what it takes to turn dreams into reality. The five-piece outfit started out as a mere cover band, playing to mostly-ambivalent patrons in bars all over Kuala Lumpur, but things finally began to look up when they unexpectedly placed second at the Yamaha Asian Beat National Finals in 2009. Appearances at several major music festivals soon followed, along with the opportunity to open for world-renown bands like MGMT, Modest Mouse, and the Smashing Pumpkins during their respective stop-overs in Malaysia. In between touring commitments, the Kuala Lumpur natives also found time to release their debut EP, the dastardly-titled
An Album (pronounced “anal bum”), which single-handedly earned the band a nomination for “Best New Artist” at the 2011 edition of Anugerah Industri Muzik – the Malaysian version of the Grammy Awards. Its follow-up, the Faiz Fadzil-produced
Pahlawan EP (2013), then saw the five-piece attempt to further expand their fanbase by performing in their native Malay language for the first time, with stellar results.
Having finally ascended into public consciousness, one can hardly blame Kyoto Protocol for wanting to get a proper LP out as soon as possible. The recording process
for Catch These Men is rumored to have begun as early as late 2013 – in the immediate aftermath of
Pahlawan’s release – with Faiz Fadzil being asked to handle both mixing and mastering duties once again. Significantly,
Catch These Men also sees Kyoto Protocol deliberately opting to return to the more muscular rock-and-roll sound that they had previously established on
An Album. It’s easy to see why – the five-piece have always been an impressively taut unit, and no doubt the time spent performing before audiences in recent years has given them the extra yard of confidence that is often required to make creative decisions of this magnitude.
As such,
Catch These Men is best described as the sound of a bunch of Average Joes congregating in a basement after work and thereafter allowing their youth to express itself. The resulting cuts are angular, relatable, and despite their gleaming studio sheen, decidedly unrefined; when lead vocalist Fuad Alhabshi intones “7 am wake up new day/Snooze alarm in bed I wish to stay”, you know there probably isn’t any particularly deep insight into the human condition to be found here. But for all their unhoned lyricism and decidedly formulaic approach to songwriting, Kyoto Protocol manages to stay impressively in control throughout the entirety of
Catch These Men. Each member of the band plays with a keen sense for dramatic flair, giving the record a sense of vitality that belies its relatively primordial beginnings. Lead single "Dispensable", for instance, is an upbeat, jagged tune that is strongly reminiscent of
Make Yourself-era Incubus. The tumultuous opening track “Infernal” is equally as impressive, utilizing crunching riffs and a surprisingly anthemic chorus (repeated iterations of the line “How could you rape our mother?”) in order to advance its cause. "Now You’re Gone" in turn is a slow burning rocker that gives lead singer Fuad Alhabshi an opportunity to demonstrate his impressive vocal range, while “I Am Not” finds the band exuding a prickly confidence from behind a layer of surging guitars that recall the zeitgeist of albums like
First Impressions of Earth or
Hot Fuss.
That being said, it’s somewhat telling that the
Pahlawan EP – which features songs that were mostly composed by others – is still Kyoto Protocol’s most balanced work to date. Elsewhere, more playful, toss-off tracks like "KL I Love You" and "Monster’s Ball" also feel like remnants of a formative phase that Kyoto Protocol will soon outgrow. In addition, there is also a nagging tendency, especially in the middle third of several songs, for the band to regress to instrumental noodling that simply doesn’t go anywhere. Yet, for a record that whips by in just 36 minutes,
Catch These Men manages to exhibit a refreshing degree of both width and breadth that is rarely seen in the Malaysian English music scene. Kyoto Protocol may not be world beaters just yet, but their efforts to get there will certainly make for some mighty interesting viewing.
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