Rating:

While II is certainly a solid effort, Kill.Pop falls a few notches short of producing a truly fantastic CD. This Kansas City band has been playing the area for a few years now and their latest album, II, released on the band’s own Artwhore Records, marks the groups second full length CD.

While the music is certainly heavy at times they are far from a metal band. Their music is predominately post hardcore with a lot of alternative and college indie rock influences tossed in for good measure. During the 1’’0s, Kansas City was known nationally for producing several bands that were a little on the noisy and mathy side of things. These bands featured plenty of melodic yet heavy guitars, had plenty of big, thick low end sound and were accompanied by some busy - but not over the top - drum patterns. It is obvious that Kill.Pop has spent plenty of time listening to older KC bands like Season to Risk, Molly McGuire (and their later incarnation Gunfighter) and Shiner, as one can find plenty of the old school “Kansas City sound” coming out on this recording. This is a great tribute to that sound keeping some key elements of it alive in KC while at the same time not being a direct rip off of those same bands.

Most of the lyrics from the tri-vocalist band on II seem to deal with relationships, lost love, being alone and the effects that all of that tends to have on individuals. Thankfully, though, they do not present this in a sappy “emo” fashion. Kill.Pop. uses this musical outlet to express the dark side of life and make it clear that not everything one encounters is flowery and peachy. The message appears to be that sometimes life just sucks and your only option is to deal with it.

Home studio producer Dave Johnson – locally recognized for running longtime Kansas City hard rock band Everybody’s X - recorded Kill.Pop.’s latest effort. Johnson hits the ball out of the park on this recording with some full and well-rounded guitar tones. This rings especially true on “Exciter,” which features a nice melodic and dare I say poppy style guitar part throughout from guitarist/vocalist Brent Kinder and guitarist/bassist/vocalist J. Irvine. The sound of Tyson Schroeder’s drums complements this music perfectly. The kick drum is nice and punchy without being too thin sounding in the mix, while the overall sound is heavy on the reverb and adds plenty to the overall dark vibe the band is shooting for. The band’s cover of the Portishead tune “Sour Times,” which has been a staple of their live set for some time, was a great way to finish off the album.

The song was not enough to make me want to listen again, though. One big problem with II is its lack of excitability from start to finish. The music is plenty good and well executed, but listeners will be bored with the record after three or four tracks and find it difficult to make it to the end. Music should reach out and demand attention. It should strike some chord with the listeners from the get go and command their ears. It should make us want to hit the repeat button and enjoy the whole thing again and again. Sadly, this disc fell flat by the end of it and it was better off finished sooner rather than later. Some of the tunes start to sound alike after a while and the initial enjoyment wears quickly. Hopefully when the band gets around to releasing album number III, this will not continue to be a problem.