The new album from Kal Marks is called Let The Shit House Burn Down. In other words, I loved this record before I even played it. The tunes from the Boston trio are incendiary and legitimately unsettling in spots. That the release inspires thoughts of rioting in a listener is to be taken as a compliment.
Opener "Nu Legs" is Big Black mixed with a snatch of the sort of skewed indie that anchored many an Archers of Loaf song. If the cut is tuneful in a faint way, "Kimmy" and "Head's Been Ringing" are not. These selections suggest many a night spent listening to Jesus Lizard and The Birthday Party albums by the players here, even if "Head's Been Ringing" contains brief passages where things calm down and a moment or two of something lovely escapes. Elsewhere, "It's So Hard To Know How To Say Goodbye" reveals a faint debt owed to Slint, or Mogwai, while "Science is Science" suggests something primordial being unleashed, and tamed. Kal Marks make a helluva racket here and it's frequently glorious. I dig this a whole lot.
Let The Shit House Burn Down is out on Friday.
More details on Kal Marks via the band's official Facebook page.
[Photo: Omari Spears]