Most, if not all, of my head hurts at some time. It's a sign of inner torment. Or maybe a permanent hangover. I'd like it to be the hangover. Really I would. Then I hear an album like "Fun Anxiety" by Kill The Captains and I realise that I'm not the only one with way too many square things bouncing about in my head.
Nailing a band like this down is a hard task. They're post punk or maybe they are post rock or maybe both. They're probably too confusing for the masses to accept but that's hardly the point. If this were the seventies then this band would be massive. Nobody shied away from musical complexity then and it was common for an album to have a theme but the world today is a twisted and much simplified place. It has to be or you couldn't compress it to fit on your iPod.
That might explain the evasive musical manoeuvres on show here. You could easily compare the likes of "Spot The Leopard" or "Cellar Dweller" to the fully formed drama of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band complete with truly oblique lyrics that would fit into some barking mad off-Broadway musical. That musical insanity never really goes away and reappears on the Britpop-esque "Rummy" and on the psychedelically sidetracked interlude "House Band At The Asylum". Mushrooms are where it is at, man!
For a band so determinedly left of centre, Kill the Captains are nonetheless accessible. It might seem like a contradiction but it isn't if you engage your brain. Puzzles are good for you, after all.