Kidcrash
Jokes

4.5
superb

Review

by pixiesfanyo USER (118 Reviews)
July 19th, 2007 | 599 replies

Release Date: 2007 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Beautiful blend of every single emo band I can name drop. Besides maybe Gospel. Oh wait the drummer kills.

I don’t really know what there is to say about Kidcrash’s “Jokes” besides the fact that it is one of the finest emo albums of the past year. I guess I could start the review out with some kind of abstract relation like they’re a combination of Off Minor’s spazzed out math sound and the early Slint swiping groups like Maximillian Colby. But, Kidcrash really lacks the dynamic persuasion of those bands. It is obvious that the band was formally a big fan of the Kinsella projects and in more appropriate terms the entire mid-west emo sound, but they also seem to riff into heavy chord sections that are reminiscent of the current European emo sound that bands like Daitro and Sed Non Satiata are pushing. I suppose I’ll resort to describing Kidcrash as a band that seems to mesh all of the current trends in emo into one insanely well-made package.

The album opens up with the lengthy intro of “Turtlelephant” which almost makes the band seem like they’re going to be exchanging Don Caballero style swells but then the vocally dense screams push their way into the song and the mood is changed into some sort of late ‘90s hardcore song. It is a brilliant strategy that Kidcrash essentially works the entire album. Where a band like Off Minor uses its math rock or jazz influence to create huge increases of sound and large decreases into silent beauty, Kidcrash does not possess this dynamic persuasion in their music. Instead most of the time Kidcrash relies on exploiting the crazy technical side of their music which means they’re basically never playing the same note through out the entire album. The band certainly isn’t “Hot Crossing” all over the album but they are making extreme benefit of the idea that every note should trigger a specific harmony and in most cases it works fantastically. Highlights on the album include the completely instrumental “Kissed By A Roach From The Grave” and the supposed epic “Aconduit Rather Than A Vault”.

Perhaps the main flaw in Kidcrash’s sound isn’t even something it can control due to its obvious low budget. The production and mixing on this album seem very unattractive in assisting the brilliant sounds the band is creating. With a group like Jerome’s Dream the complete amateur sound of the record helped the band create extremely dense, depressing technical pieces. But, Kidcrash isn’t really playing a very dense sound; they would be much more successful if they were given some more lush, refined production that helped the gorgeous tones on this record flourish. Sure, some of the songs on the album can get a little stale due to the seemingly lack of dynamics but this is just a minor gripe as most of the material on this album is brilliant. Due to the lacking of crescendo based cathartic releases the album is given in my opinion a more beneficial replay value because every song has various trigger moments that are extremely enjoyable. Instead of one ultimate pay off there are a series of smaller but just as enjoyable sections.

With “Jokes” Kidcrash has insured themselves a large amount of press from the underground hardcore scene which will probably place them in the ranks of a band like Ampere or Daitro who are at the forefront of the genre. So, if you really want to be hip with all those internet suave emo realists, I suggest you give this album a look.

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