Album, Single and EP Reviews


 

 

  Lord Kesseli and The Drums by Lord Kesseli and The Drums


Lord Kesseli and The Drums cover art

Artist: Lord Kesseli and The Drums
Title: Lord Kesseli and The Drums
Catalogue Number: Ikarus Records
Review Format: Download
Release Year: 2016



I like short press releases. Lord Kesseli and The Drums are a Swiss psych band. That’s all I know. That’s, fortunately, not all you get. You get six songs on an EP that you actually have to listen to in order to make sense of it.

The sonic blurring and religious chanting that drags “Arnold” out of his cell and into your living room isn’t likely to encourage you to listen further but perseverance, like substance abuse, is its own reward. Next up is “Siri” which advertises its very conventionality with a trippy melody and eighties synth pop sensibilities. The intensity is evident in the foggy vocals even if the sense is not. Jump forward into “Fade” and encounter an avant-garde ambush that layers melancholy on top of the subsonic. “Pure Motion” then exercises the right to be a soundtrack to a John Carpenter movie. One of his early ones. One of his good ones.

The dancefloor doesn’t escape either with “MDMA” being so full of manic robotic energy that it nearly throws the forever edgy guitar off the lap dancing bus and into the river. “Kid” ends the EP on the kind of nine minute long Krautrock note that makes you think the Grimm Brothers could actually have got a job with the Disney Corporation if they were looking for something other than princesses and mermaids. Fade to black.

I didn’t even like this EP when I first heard it. Now I love it even if it is always directed away from you as if to instead point you at the sun, moon and stars. Depression into ecstasy. Kaboom!


www.lordkesseliandthedrums.com
Reviewer:
Review Date: June 13 2016