Kickball
ABCDEFGHIJKickball
( YoYo Recordings ) 2006

Kickball's newest album! The sound is different from their last album (Huckleberry Eater) and more like their self-titled first album. With the last one, the instrumentation was more light and clean sounding and the vocals and drums were the main push of the songs. With this one, all the instruments get their fair share with the exception of maybe the bass driving the songs a bit more in some ways. The production is not as clean with this album and more thick and all the instruments are more quasi-loudish. With Huckleberry Eater, it sounded like the perfect thing to listen to in the Spring. With this one, it's the perfect Fall album.

My favorite song is the first song, "Little Thing". It's so upbeat and I am totally in love with the beginning with the drumming and the more than one person singing/shouting. Then that goes down and the song starts and it's just a really great song. Also, it says there are eight songs on the album.. . but no, they snuck an extra one at the end after a minute or so of silence.

Jacob's voice is still so perfectly yummy. I've never masturbated to a dude's vocals before, but if I did, it would be to his -- Stuart Murdock's, too, I suppose now that we're on the subject. The way he sings though is just tooooo good - so innocent and with a bit of sadness in it. And Drummer Lisa's drumming still makes you want to buy a drumset and her book The DIY Guide to Drumming for the Autonomous Rock Star.

ABCDEFGHIJKickball is still a really good album, but it doesn't have as much of the specialness as Huckleberry Eater. That's not a bad thing though, because that album is just so incredibly good that it's hard to have another batch of songs on par with that one or something. You should buy this one and catch them on tour this February & March while they tour with Mt.Smaller!

Naoko :: ('twas January of 2006)