I love that the album cover for ShowYrTeeth shows a person immersed in a bathtub of glittering sludge inside a dilapidated room that looks like an abandoned industrial warehouse somewhere. It is this combination of glitzy and gritty that exemplifies the sound and style of The Kickaways. ShowYrTeeth is a tantalizing mixture of glam with a touch of 'the ultra-violence.'
The Kickaways are Charles Lynn [vocals], Rémi Glistovski [guitar and keyboards], Adam Lambchop [drums] and Jake Ittel [bass].
ShowYrTeeth is the second studio album by The Kickaways. Their first album, 2011's America! America! was a smash success that earned the band a CMA, beating out such powerhouse acts as Buffalo Killers, The Greenhornes and Brian Olive.
ShowYrTeeth was recorded, engineered and produced by Bill Skibbe and Jessica Ruffins at KeyClubStudios in Benton Harbor MI. The mastering was done by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering in Chicago.
The Kickaways' sound has a deeply blues-based soul, but has a heart that pumps in early hard rock/metal riffs. Lynn's vocals possess a power in a Robert Plant-meets-Jack White kind of way. The album is sexy, seductive, dangerous and enticing -- like a vampire offering you a glass of red wine.
In a very generalized way, although ShowYrTeeth opens with such powerful songs as the title track "Shake Yr Devils Bones," like any addiction, the album just gets better the deeper you get into it.
No two songs really sound alike which, to me, is a sure sign of a deep pool of musical talent and songwriting ability.
"Last Generation" is a pounding, driving anthem of discontent that has sonic ties to Marilyn Manson.
http://youtu.be/FlP8i69jL78
"Fake Blood" features a polyphonic octave-generator on Glistovski's guitar which gives the piece an almost orchestral depth of sound.
Although many of the tracks on ShowYrTeeth rely heavily on effects and production, I truly fell in love with "Edie Says." The song is simplistic in makeup, primarily acoustic in sound, and the rhythm track is played on an antique manual typewriter. It was as if The Jesus & Mary Chain were covering a long-lost Velvet Underground opus.
The album closes with "Goodnight Art." The pace is slowed, the guitar is de-tuned and Lynn's voice sounds spent. It is as if the band just fought and clawed through the previous 10 tracks and desperately needed to capture just one more. At over 8 minutes long, there is so much depth and emotion in "Goodnight Art" that, when it is all over, you feel exhausted --- but desperate to start it all over again.
ShowYrTeeth by The Kickaways is available on iTunes, Amazon.com, Bandcamp and Rock, Paper Scissors.
