Monday 27 February 2012

Raw power, digital: Kap Bambino's 'Devotion'

First published in Loud And Quiet

Kap Bambino
Devotion 
Because Music


Crystal Castles’ breakthrough success annoyed everyone from hand-wringing parents of Skins wannabes to hipper-than-thou types suspicious of the too-cool-to-be-true duo. And they must have pissed off electro-thrash boy-girl duo Kap Bambino too, a band whose fifth album makes another valiant stab at dethroning the Toronto upstarts. Known for their fearsome live shows, Bordeaux-based KB have made a surprising success of translating that raw power to shiny disc, with the title track’s arpeggios pumped through the Tokyo grid before collapsing in garbled distortion.

On ‘Next Resurrection’, stabbing synths veer towards sick-headed trance through the eyes of John Carpenter (the touchstone du jour in electronic music, it seems), while Caroline Martial’s fembot vocals hit a poppy sweet spot with added juvenile squawks. The drums are fake and tacky like Essex nails, bludgeoning you with perverted Euro House builds and drops, while gothic keys grind through a digital mincer for a zombified twist on the witch house weirdness of Tri Angle Records. You’ll hate yourself for loving this.

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