KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: * * *
Label: Sub Pop!
Verdict: Wake up. Time for chaos
Sonic Seattle rockers Kinski have a slacker laziness about them and it's part of their charm. The songs, which are mostly instrumental, develop as if the quartet are awakening from an intoxicated slumber. Then you get a warning, hold tight as a searing onslaught of noise hits and they march you off to a more menacing place with a staunch Sabbath-style attack.
Boy, Was I Mad! smoulders away with flute and brittle guitar before giving up to a deathly beat and menacing dual guitar frenzy of fuzz in one ear and a violent scream in the other. Then they unleash a psychedelic sprawl that starts coming unhinged, as if on the verge of collapse, like Sonic Youth meets the degenerate sound of Mudhoney.
Elsewhere, courtesy of more whimsical flute, there's serene beauty on Argentina Turner; the distorted dreamy guitar and dry drawl of Chris Martin on Passwords & Alcohol and Dayroom At Narita Int'l; and Child Had To Catch a Train has seething smoky keys. Special mention has to go to epic nine-minute last track, Silent Biker Type, which broods like a pair of tortured, sunburned lips. You expect it to explode into a nasty slug fest but it simply, and beautifully, creaks and squeals into nothing. Peaceful chaos.
