I'd not heard of The Sorry Kisses until the release of 'Keep Smiling', the duo's third album which jumped right out of the proverbial page from the very first listen. I'm yet to hear those first two releases so I'll keep my comments purely on the latest release (I'll be correcting that once I get chance) though this is apparently the heaviest thing they've released to date.
For me at least, it's been a pretty wonderful starting point...
Comprising of singer Hayley Hutchinson and guitarist Sam Forrest (formerly of Nine Blacks Alps) The Sorry Kisses have created an aural treat with 'Keep Smiling'. Kicking off with the frenzied punk rock of "Drifting in the Dark", maxed-out reverb heavy guitars treat the listener to an utterly beautiful racket. The rough-edged rock continues with "Sunstorms" and "Love But Left Behind", both explosive yet introspective numbers with the sludge like crushing guitars complemented wonderfully by Hayley's exceptionally charged vocals.
Wisely the fuzzed up rock numbers are interspersed with a more tranquil, melodic side; an obvious highlight is sunny day reminiscent "Blue Skies", the shimmering and youthful melodies are a world apart from (the most obvious Nine Black Alps cross-over) grunge-derived mudslide "What's The Big Deal". Its ferocious, feedback drenched guitar riffs won't be to everyone's taste - certainly not my Mum who'd be saying "ah this is nice, I could listen to whilst I'm in the garden" about "Blue Skies" whereas "... Big Deal" would get a "what the hell is this noise"... Mum's hey.
"Postcards" brings back some of the beautiful day, breezy sugar-pop feeling but contains bite just when you think the band have ran out of 50p's to feed the electric meter. "City Light City Nights" is a perfect closure for the album, woozy and dreamy. Keep Smiling has (for me - not my mum) a great balance of gorgeous poppy songs yet inter-weaved with viciously rocking parts. Lovely.
8.0 / 10
Buy it here // http://www.thesorrykisses.net/
Doing some research into The Sorry Kisses had me chuckling (I'm easily pleased) for a couple of reasons; firstly was this (frankly odd) review where the band are tossed-in with The Joy Formidable, personally I'm not getting much too similarity bar the obvious guitars and female singer, perhaps a greater one could be found in their previous incarnation The Sidecar Kisses, not just the name.
Then also this too; The Sorry Kisses been on tour recently with Benjamin Francis Leftwich, this review states Hayley's vocals on the stripped back acoustic set are "initially reminiscent of a British Caitlin Rose" - so two pages - my two favourite artists - consider me more than curious!
The Sorry Kisses - Sunstorms
The Sorry Kisses - Blue Skies
Edit: So I did some digging (well Google searching the band + acoustic) and found this, I'll not comment on the Caitlin reference, but it is rather lovely:
No comments:
Post a Comment