The Kissaway Trail - The Kissaway Trail (Bella Union)
3/5
By: Chris O'Toole
The Kissaway Trail has a reputation to maintain. With a national musical heritage filled with such luminaries as Aqua and Junior Senior, expectations are running high for this new band. The spirit of Danish pop music must be kept alive! Whilst not overtly similar to there predecessors The Kissaway Trail are certainly attempting to claim the pop pedestal once occupied, albeit briefly, by there fellow countrymen. However, despite all their bristling percussion, layered strings and melodic choruses, their brand of European pop comes across as rather flat and lifeless in this day and age. As audiences have grown more discerning, so have tastes in pop music, but the Kissaway Trail sound a touch dated, a touch self conscience and a touch insincere.
A five piece band from Odense, Denmark, they mould complex spiders web pop music, build around the dual vocal melodies of Thomas L. Fagerlund and Søren B. Corneliussen. Both performers, whilst distinct from the other, carry similar traits, singing to the edge of their ability with hysterical passion, at points reaching an excruciating wail. Any opinion of the band is thus heavily dependent on an ability to warm to this very unique style. This central tenant is supported by varied instrumentation; mandolins, banjos are called into service where necessary, to enhance the central guitar lines, building to a ragged crescendo whenever possible. This, their self-titled debut, album bubbles accordingly; at times mournful, but always with a lustful and full bodied chorus lurking on the horizon.
Over the course of the album, however, it becomes apparent that their effort to pack the recording with as much musical detail as possible has taken a rather detrimental effect. Most of the accompaniment seems rather fruitless, even amateurish, failing as it does to build any recognisable atmosphere or enhance the structure of the songs in any meaningful way. For example on 'It's Close Up, Far Away' the sound is cluttered and imprecise as if the band are insecure about their talents and seek to cram as much material into each piece as possible, apologetically blustering through without the confidence to let the music stand alone and shine. Whilst all five members of the group sing they do so in opposition to the efforts of each other member, not in harmony. It is more a collection of different sounds pulling in a similar direction than the unified and angelic whole they seek.
Whereas bands like the Polyphonic Spree made their numbers count the Kissaway Trail simply layer more similar elements on top of each other, like shovelfuls of dirt on the grave. A case in point is the 'La La Song', replete with nonsensical vocals and harmonious chanting; a song filled to bursting with exuberant optimism. However here the track fails to quite carry the atmospheric joy the band seek, instead sounding faintly desperate to please and not sharing in an unbridled euphoria. The same applies to 'Smother + Evil = Hurt' which wears the clothes of 'All Is Dream' era Mercury Rev, plying a plaintive vocal line over crashing drums. But whereas Mercury Rev are the masters of fleeting release and charming minimal string arrangements the Kissaway Trail develop and expand everything to the point of obsolescence, crushing the delicate beauty of what they are trying to create. There are also traces of Radiohead and their followers all over the album, as if they had learned their style from European radio stations and are now arriving on these shores assuming they are fresh and dynamic, only to be greeted as dated and a little saturated.
One item of note is that the artwork of the album was designed by Tracy Maurice, and the style is recognisable from her other work, notably with 'Funeral' by the Arcade Fire. Indeed the band pays homage to the current media darlings on their track '61', full of rumbling drums, emotive if confused lyrics, fiery delivery and vague emotional catharsis. Whilst the Kissaway Trail don't sound confused, they know exactly what they are aiming for, their influences are so diverse that homage to all of them is impossible. Instead it sounds as though each track is performed by a different band, attempting a cover of their favourite artist. The result is almost parody delivered with emotion but not conviction; engaging but not captivating.
Stream two tracks from 'The Kissaway Trail' HERE.
Artists in this article: The Kissaway Trail
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