Review: Kaddisfly “Buy Our Intention; We’ll Buy You a Unicorn” CD

I don't know what the hell that band name's all about, but this is interesting stuff that tends to cover a lot of bases without sitting still for very long. Their style is rather interesting in its blend of contemporary emo/indie rock styles with a backbone of the genre's more traditional side, as well as some modern alternative rock and metalcore flare for added effect. Expect everything from angular riffing and jarring chord progressions to flowing clean passages with lush effects, sparse rhythmic jaunts, artsy passages with more an off kilter experimental vibe (see "Crimson Solitude"), or more openly melodic and straightforward playing, among other approaches, all with vocals that range from unique high-pitched singing to bits of screaming - using lots of strange harmonies and vocal patterns for a really quirky feel. I can hear bits and pieces of everything from At the Drive-In and Thrice to The Police or Alien Ant Farm on this thing, which is a pretty odd range, but they basically pull it off and make sense of it here. "The Calm of Calamity" has a lot of great vocal harmonies that stand out and pull the song apart from the pack, also using a few light smatterings of piano as additional texture; "New Moon Over Swift Water" is also catchier but more importantly gets chunkier with some of its chord progressions and brings in a very subtle metallic sort of angle; taken even farther in "Akira." with blatant metalcore riffing including pull-off runs, dual guitar harmonies, and chugga breaks!? And that's followed by a beautiful acoustic outro and then the ambient swells and oddly rhythmic (to a hip-hop degree, but not, if that makes any sense - it's fucking weird) vocal patterns that kick off "For the Ejection of Rest; They'll Dance"!? Talk about a quick change of pace! My biggest (though still relatively minor) complaint is that no way in hell should this disc run an hour, much less more than an hour. They need to cut an easy 15 minutes off of this thing (the boring and useless "Osmosis in C", for example), but truly more like 20 - 25 minutes (i.e. five songs) to make it more effective. I mean, 15 songs and 67 minutes? Christ, that's just massive overkill... very few bands can pull off that combination. Things definitely drag on after nine or 10 songs, so... that's something to think about. Especially because towards the end of the CD the songs are longer, averaging more than five minutes each, and most of those tracks are less energetic as well (using more slow and chilled out passages that don't particularly go anywhere), sans the title track, which does have a great chorus. Hell, "Horses Galloping on Sail Boats" closes at more than 10 minutes with a hugely drawn out experimental/prog rock sort of noisy instrumental journey through droning ambience and noisy cacophonies. Drop a few of those songs and you'd have a far more focused piece of work on your hands. The recording is good but favors the higher-end of things a little much. It's definitely nice and bright, but the vocals are barely overpowering at times, partly due to the fact that the lead singer's voice is pretty high, so that can distract from the music at times. The only reason that bothers me a bit is because there's a ton of layering and intricate instrumental interaction going on with the music, which can get lost in the shuffle here and there. Overall the mix is clear, but I'd like t hear the bass become more prominent in the center, with the drums following suit to balance their crispness against the guitars. It does sound pretty damn good overall though, minor tweaking would just polish it up even more. The layout looks awesome and uses lots of blank white space and clean text with subdued little color photographs on the outside, while inside are lots of sketchy figurative drawings and great looking handwritten text for all of the lyrics. The lyrics are quite unusual as well, hinting at certain messages of making sure not to take things for granted and discouraging selfishness and such, but never coming off as too direct: "My diction's for you with your mind for these words, whether you act in subversion or progress in vast herds, you may find contentment in quarters unseen, or you may chance upon solace through an inchoate dream..." This is definitely an acquired taste. I got into it pretty quickly but it certainly took me a good 20 minutes to start appreciating what was going on despite all of its quirks and deliberate inconsistencies. Ignoring its minor setbacks, though... this is curious work, and I do like most of it. They're strange enough to where I admire their oddball concoction of influences, but at the same time I could still see them achieving wider success with this stuff. Worth looking into... not for everyone, but... worth an attempt.