Klum – Victory all my life
Klum’s debut album “Victory all my life” sees the LA five piece take a variety of musical styles and re-invent them as their own. At times they could be compared to Radiohead, at others they’re as melodic as Sigur Ros and others as chaotically organised as Arcade Fire and Guillemots, whilst never treading on the toes of the aforementioned artists. However there is one thing we will all agree on: you’ll either love or despise their debut.
Album opener, “Focus”, seems to be lacking in much focus, providing quite a good idea of whats to come throughout the album, but tries to be many things at once it seems. Whilst this is no bad thing, it does seem a bit of a mish mash of styles in one track. “Asleep at trial”, the second track of the album starts off with a voice akin to Thom Yorke’s, before descending into a mish-mash of sounds similar to an Arcade Fire live show
“Breathe Machine” is the perfect soundtrack to a good night’s dreaming: disembodied voices in the background, gentle, organ-like keys and the soothing vocals of Brock Flores. Slowly “I can’t dance” fades in, and the dream continues, floating over epic sounds that are akin to early Radiohead.
“From the door” sounds like a chilled out attempt at cock-rock, “That’s not really my car, but I look good in it and that could take me far” says Brock, and you can’t help but feel that he actually means it, before everyone starts to overlap each other with drums and electric guitars chaotically mixed: but just before it becomes unlistenable they pull it back round, suddenly becoming very tight and together.
Perhaps one of the most vibrant tracks of the album, “I sing the song wrong” is full of hidden little sounds, from the child-like keys at the start, to the percussion throughout, and bird-like guitars and weird sounds at the end, its songs like this that show what Klum could be in a few albums time.
Closer “Seaslow” starts off quite similar to Sigur Ros, but soon we realise that its not quite as good, and the album could probably have managed without it: a long string of moaning before the obligatory loud ending.
So all in all a bit of a mixed bag from this LA band. They could be ones to watch or check out in an album or two’s time, when they’ve perfected their sound a little bit more. At the moment they seem to be trying to be too much at once, and whilst they do most of it perfectly ably, I think they need to just focus on one style.
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