Review Summary: Gutters and Tears and Balloons--Pay & his amazing friends issue#2.
If the dissonance and retentive hangover of "In My Defense Self Me Defend" is one who lies mumbling alone on grey, dehydrated grass, the rest 'lucky 7' could be those who conceal their sidekicks from one antagonist's eye--or you shading the next page of issue #2 over central metropolitan green. Manipulating parallax, SDF has disguised this LP's subject matter of black & white exaggerations, heroes, villains, and their creators, seeking one terrene figure--in full motley--behind our primary point of view. A kaleidoscope which encompasses all those who'd felt compiled to channel energy into small crowds or panels and subsequently applied color, channeling their own extremes--eventual prize winners or even those who never made it. As for Self Defense Family, they 're aware of the non-existent placement on the best-seller list; I've actually come to the conclusion that their league "not makin' it big" marks a strategic choice so that they can shapeshift according to mood, without answering to us... or answering in a way that might make us pull further back, raising our brows even higher.
So, Kindlon's lingual outlines and his companions add shade and colour, though on
Heaven Is Earth you won't find post on post-core or rasp over power-chord that explodes inconsiderably on all directions. The mollified prose stands atop trembling guitar peaks, the occasional harmonica and piano, and dynamic lows from the bass; layers that build up to the exact amount of energy SDF has always savoured, albeit more controlled... focused--released in burst mode, behind a vanguard of percussive opaqueness. To make you even more uncomfortable, they went for four different studios, toggling four different producers, and if that hints towards wide gutters and "heterogeneous", they might argue that they used to stack up spiders and aardvarks in that same box under their bed. And if that sounds ambiguous or torn as Talia* & the rest of nature's anti-figures, Pay might add that, deep inside, those are also defined and loyal to their own cause. He can even tolerate the cynic twat inside you smirking at the title, but then again, he might punch back in his bottom tier, condescending, "*that swell of joy lasts until you catch a glance of this sad ***ed world at its best." On second thought, come his next rant balloon, he'll probably choose to elaborate a tad further...
