Signatures In Time Icon

Signatures In Time Icon

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Kittens Slay Dragons - Big Big Heart (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://kittensslaydragons.com/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/kittensslaydragons/

NEW MUSIC VIDEO -
Love is Surgery:  https://youtu.be/uLUjVFRQePk


STREAM: https://kittensslaydragons.bandcamp.com




Songwriter and singer Sarah Donner is a brilliant example of how the most meaningful artists illustrate significance in both their lives and work. This animal rescue and mental health advocate is able to use her art in a such a way that listeners feel quite willing to engage the empathy in such abundance throughout her songwriting, but they likewise will never feel like Donner is attempting to browbeat them into a particular point of view. Dogma is death to popular song and Donner resolutely avoids that at every turn. Kittens Slay Dragons is a remarkably apt title for this deceptively cathartic release – it isn’t a cry of anguish that she unleashes here, however, but rather a full throated invocation of her innermost self in a recognizable musical form. Big Big Heart, the debut release for Kittens Slay Dragons, features a three piece configuration who make a tremendous impression with electronica in a day and age where the genre seems likely to be providing diminishing returns.

The touch of synthesizers is readily apparent and Donner’s vocal on the opener, “Gatekeeper”, is exuberant and quite inspired. This is certainly electronic pop, but it undercuts the style’s reputation as a vacuous musical form. Instead, this pops and crackles with immense intelligence and literacy that few acts or tracks falling within this type of music can possibly equal. The album’s second song “Castiel” continues the same spirit with even a little more discernible bounce than before. The use of electronic instruments, however, never means that these come off as cold compositions – a common knock on the style. Instead, Donner and her collaborators use electronic instruments in such a way they radiate warmth and have a pleasing live feel. The same intelligence guiding these previous songs hits another level entirely on the track “Smile Pretty” – despite the artsy veneer, there’s a hard-eyed clarity surrounding this song that sets it apart from the other material. Much of this, however, can be lain at the feet of Donner’s impassioned vocal.

The title song makes one of the album’s more emphatic musical and lyrical statements without ever straining too greatly for effect. The electronic textures, however, are a little more challenging than before without ever losing sight of the song’s melodic potential. It’s one of the album’s longest songs, at this point, and has what you expect from a title cut – a sense of the bigger picture, a thesis of sorts for what precedes and follows it. The insistent pulse underpinning “Queer and Square” makes for one of the album’s most bracing musical moments and Donner’s wide-eyed bray is impossible to ignore. The same electronic pop sheen that makes much of Big Big Heart glow continues in its closer “Head Down, Heart Up” but it avoids the cheese factor that weighs down many similar efforts. Instead, it feels and sounds like a strong closer for an album with irrepressible spirit and immense humanity. Kittens Slay Dragons doesn’t come off, at any point, sounds like a one off or vanity project. Instead, this has all the heft and entertainment value of an abiding artistic statement and will garner a lot of justified positive attention.

Grade: A

Written by Charles Hatton

No comments:

Post a Comment