Sunday, March 29, 2009

Song Of The Week: "Closing In" (Kerosene 454)

My relationship with Kerosene 454 has always been cursory: a song here, an EP there. When I found "Came By To Kill Me" on vinyl recently, I figured it would be my chance to finally digest them in full. Turns out, this LP was a rip-roaring choice! Along with some of the releases on the side bar over there, this one has been on non-stop rotation for the last month. Much of the Dischord stuff from the mid nineties was a bit... 'dainty' for my liking, and it seems fitting that this LP was a split release. It's as if the band was some bastard child not quite worthy of full inheritance. To my tastes, it's brilliant. Ethereal guitar chords, good cop-bad cop vocals, and drumming that must have been provided by a disgruntled blacksmith... everything adds up to a pretty unique rock experience, yet the aesthetic ties to heavy indie acts like Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu, and Last Of The Juanitas make it all rather sweetly familiar.

The album is pretty stellar all the way through, but I chose "Closing In" for the usual reasons: it's one of my favorites, and it tightly epitomizes this most captivating moment in 454's lifetime. Check it out.

(Filepub's been kinda ghetto lately, so I put a back up link down below too.)

"Closing In"

"Closing In" (Mediafire)

4 comments:

justin said...

You were right about filebub it lamed out on you, but thanx for the backup. You were also right on about your description of these guys, especially "good cop-bad cop vocals, and drumming that must have been provided by a disgruntled blacksmith." I can also hear the similarity in DLJ, which reminds me I need to post them or some Tit Wrench sometime. Thanx again bro.

Batguano said...

Hey, thanks Justin. Jehu will never be dethroned as probably the best band to come out of SD! Now, as for Tit Wrench, I'd be interested in hearing some more by them since I have put that off for too long (maybe it was the whole drum machine thing?) So, yeah, looking forward to that stuff!

johnny said...

personally i prefer "race" to this record. but all k454 stuff was good! actually these guys where contemporaries of jehu/fugazi ect so they kind of co-created this kind of sound.....actually i get the same feel from lincoln as i do from k454 when i listen to them.....

Batguano said...

There was some overlap, but I kind of think of Pitchfork/Jehu and Fugazi as originators because they appeared in the late eighties.

It would have been nice if Lincoln had released more. Their Sugarloaf/Waterboy 7" is one of my favorite recs in that style.