Album Rating: 1.0 | Sound Off

Sadly one of the worst albums I have ever given a spin. Especially with the knowledge that they can do sooooooooo much better.

Album Rating: 2.0

Damn a 1???

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

call this album BRITA the way it's filtering people

Album Rating: 4.5

timbas on it

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

Blind Creature of Slime is so mesmerising - as much as I like each song on its own merits, I wish the rest of the album was more akin to the closing track



I want to bathe in the Slime

Album Rating: 5.0

Gonna jam later with a dim light lamp and the lyrics on my hand to get the whole experience

Album Rating: 2.0

Hawks it’s fucking terrible lol

Album Rating: 4.0

Album opener is extremely difficult to listen to and actually appreciate. However, the rest of the LP isn't bad. I have a feeling this will grow on me. Right now, I'd say it's between a 3 and 3.5 for me.

Album Rating: 4.5

Toby/Kayo have plenty of albums that I didn’t enjoy until much later (Blue Lambency, Coyote, Library Loft), so while I’m not huge on Mental Shed and Closet Door (though this one has grown a bit on me), I’m sure it’ll click at some point. I absolutely love the other tracks. Oracle has become pure bliss, Automatic Writing is astonishing, and Blind creature- I want to bathe in the slime [2]

@insomniac- I’m pretty positive he talked about improv, or the lacktherof, in an audio interview over the past few years but I can’t remember which one so I guess take what I said with a grain of salt.

Album Rating: 4.5

i swear toby has said that toby says nothing is improvised, but has also said he has instructed musicians to improvise over certain parts. so idk

Album Rating: 2.0

If it's improv it sure is unfunny

Album Rating: 4.0

Toby's usually against improvisation in Kayo Dot. He seemed a bit miffed when Fantano said Hubardo has jazz improvisation when he insists it was all written and deliberate. I think it's part of why he so firmly rejects the idea of his music being associated with jazz (just because of the woodwinds and brass). His approach of through composition is more closely related to classical music where everything is intentional, as opposed to jazz where improv is foundational tenet.



Anyways, I'm not in love with this album yet but it definitely vibes. It's basically auditory elevated horror (as much as I hate the term, it resonates with people) with the harmonically dense soundscapes and ridiculously deep lyricism. I'm not that great at interpreting themes, and thankfully Toby explicitly laid a lot of them out when promoting the album, but I’m picking up on motifs of being trapped in various literal and metaphorical liminal spaces like life/death, sanity/insanity, haunted houses stuck in time and endless corridors. Lots of ghost imagery and trauma conveyed through Byron's occult symbolism and mythic imagery. Loss of self. Loss of others and being consumed by grief. I get the feeling this is one of those albums that’s a gem whose brilliance we don’t yet recognize but will eventually be regarded as peak Kayo Dot.



That said, I wish there was a *little* more percussion. Mental Shed seems to stand out as the one-ambient-song-too-many tracks. Closet Door is appropriately spooky while also display Byron's arguably greatest performance and Automatic Writing stands out as the devastating emotional core of the album, but their combined length makes for nearly 40 uninterrupted minutes of ambience which is... a bit taxing. But eh, that's Kayo Dot, baby.

Album Rating: 5.0

Finally managed to get this the right way, lyrics in front, 100% focus and just a dim atmospheric light and I must say I've been blown away. This is definitely NOT an album to just enjoy music. It's a reflective meditation into music form. It's an avant-garde, 21st century existential work of art. There is absolutely nothing I've heard so far in my life that sounds like this. This is truly avant-garde and artsy in the sense that it trascends music. Toby described it perfectly:



"Rejecting traditional rock structures and the more predictable contours of metal, Every Rock… shapes a sound that feels familiar and alien at once, where custom-designed microtonal organs and guitars weave an effort to reconcile the impossible tension between past and future. Moving away from the typical emphasis on low-end frequencies, it floats instead in the upper spectrum, where the textures become more fragile, more intimate, and more abrasive and terrifying..." (I recommend reading the whole post by Toby, which is pretty revealing)



It's so weird that a crowded high-end, meditation kind of music has such an unnerving atmosphere. They nailed what they aimed for concept wise.

I still think this should have been released under Toby's solo project or Alora, but it fits KD's discog nicely anyway.



@mobman47 got it right, this has way more in common with 20th century neo-classical than with jazz. It's closer to Penderecki's "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" than any avant-garde jazz release



Will definitely be spinning this more before choosing a definitive score but I already know it's incredible yet very difficult to rate as merely a music album.

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

The more listens I give it, the more it impresses me.

Honestly these lyrics on here are the best that KD has ever seen. They are unfairly well written and bathed in absolute nightmare imagery.

Mental Shed is the weakest song, but it's beginning to take some roots with me now, especially thinking about the overall concept and objective of the album.

Album Rating: 2.0

I'm with Mongi here, this sucks.

Album Rating: 2.0

Haha, don't get me wrong I've been kinda a KD hater and i'll admit my stance on albums like Blue Lambency have changed favorably but this one is actually one where i don't know how anyone wouldn't listen to this and have their ears be overstimulated to the max by sounds that are just ear piercing. Track one is one of the worst songs I've ever heard.

Album Rating: 3.5

I am going to be very disappointed if this sucks, both because I love Kayo Dot, because the album artwork is so cool, and because I have ordered a vinyl copy before it came out. Only time will tell lol.

I hated every second I heard of this, which admittedly was not a lot of seconds because oh my God

Album Rating: 2.0

Track one is one of the worst songs I've ever heard. [2]

Album Rating: 1.0 | Sound Off

Track one is one of the worst songs I've ever heard. [3]