Kid Kilowatt: Shockingly-Good Indie-Rock

Kid Kilowatt’s March 30th release, Guitar Method, is very impressive. I’ve had it for about five days now, and every time I listen to it I like it more. This is high praise coming from a person who really doesn’t like indie-rock. Kid Kilowatt was a Boston based group that actually broke up well before this CD was released. This CD is a collection of their recordings from 1996 to 1999; the tracks just sat on the shelf and collected dust for almost ten years before these guys got around to issuing them to the public.

The reason that it took so long to come out is because Kid Kilowatt was a side project of guitarist and front man Steven Brodsky, who, for the intervening years, has been focusing on his other band, Cave In (an incredible group, musically). On Guitar Method, the bass player is Adam McGrath, Brodsky’s compatriot from Cave In; the second guitarist is Kurt Ballou, of Converge fame; and on drums is Euclid’s Matt Redmond. All of the members bring their great musical abilities to Kid Kilowatt and make them more palatable to the listener who isn’t into blast beats and Jake Bannon’s distinctive voice.

From the first track, you can hear that the band has some metal leanings, but they never really go much further than giving you a taste of what their other bands do so well. The first track, titled “The Scope,” encapsulates what the rest of the album will sound like. It starts out sounding rather crunchy and smooths out as the album progresses, providing a good contrasting effect that runs throughout the album. There are only two real slow songs on the entire album called “Memorial Drive” and “Cadence for the Desert Sun.” When these two songs come, they don’t feel out of place. “Cadence for the Desert Sun” is actually very good. It’s got a marching rhythm that you don’t hear anywhere else in the album, so it’s a refreshing change of pace. “Memorial Drive” is only mediocre. It’s the only song on the album over five minutes long. Playing slow just isn’t this band’s forte, although they have the ability to write poignant lyrics, my favorite being “A dip in the sea of regret / The one right in my back yard.” Overall, the album sounds rather pop-y.

The closest band that I can relate them to is Thursday, but Kilowatt isn’t even that metallic or scream-oriented. They make use of pop hooks combined with post-pop chord progressions that give the CD a very melodic feel. In other words, it’s catchy. You can listen to it a lot. Since all of the members in the band are very good at playing technical music, even the longer songs don’t get boring because every instrument is playing its own rather complex part. It all comes together to sound great. The album has a total of 14 tracks and the playing time is just over 55 minutes. Those are 55 minutes well spent listening to this indie standout.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of Converge. I own a few of their albums but they aren’t a band that is playing in my room all the time because of how heavy they are. Cave In is another band that, despite its talent, I just don’t listen to much. If any of these other band names ring a bell, then you know how great these musicians are. At the time this CD was recorded, Kid Kilowatt was about as far as any of these musicians could get from their “regular” styles of music without forming a boy band. Both Converge and Cave In were hardcore bands, Converge being one of the heaviest bands that I have ever heard. Cave In was a little more traditional in their approach to hardcore, but they have since changed their musical style to more of a space rock/metal style. In addition to being giants of the hardcore world, Converge and Cave In are two of the most technically proficient bands that I have ever heard. If you want to check out either one of these bands, they are very good, just not some of my favorites. Kid Kilowatt, on the other hand, has produced one of the finest indie albums that I have heard in a very long time.