By Dessa Bayrock (Contributor) – Email
Date Posted: August 31, 2011
Print Edition: August 25, 2011
If you love indie rock that hesitates to commit to one single genre, then The Kodiak Nightlife is for you. The Metro-Vancouver band formed in early 2010 and their first album, Beast Like Me, was released this past July. The band has picked out portions of soul, jazz, grunge, metal and folk and put them together in a way that picks you up, spins you around, and refuses to get out of your head.
I must admit that the album takes a while to warm up to since the first song, “Confidence in Youth,” is so gritty and intense that it hardly knows what to do with itself. Although its heart is in the right place, in the end it cannot calm down enough to make much sense.
The second track, “Jericho,” picks up where “Confidence in Youth” leaves off. It has the same grungy overtones, but holds together in a way that the first track does not. Its excitement channels into a catchy theme instead of wearing itself out, and the opening riff alone is enough to get the listener wanting to follow instructions when Jason Sylvester belts out, “We’ve got to stand up / and put our feet down.”
It’s with the next couple of songs that they really get into the swing of things, starting with “Come Back To Me.” It’s the first noticeable time that Jacqueline Bartel chimes in with her soulful harmonies, and it’s the kind of music that makes you shut up and listen; the kind of song that you find yourself humming to, no matter what you’re doing.
This is even more so the case when it comes to the next song, “The Dirt Don’t Keep You Down,” which is about zombies. It’s awesome! It’s catchy, it’s creepy, and Bartel’s voice is like a soaring bird as she sings out, “And you groan like ships in the fog / so weak, yet so strong. / And you moan like hungry dogs / as you sing your zombie songs.” Words cannot describe my love for this song. It is the ultimate lullaby anthem for a post-modern indie kid.
At this point, all the elements that they’ve been working towards finally stick together into an epic cohesiveness, and it only gets better from there. The last two songs kick you in the face with their deliciousness. The second-to-last track loses the distracting distortion in favour of an acoustic sound, which really allows Sylvester’s unique, gravelly vocals to stand out.
They kick it back up to the grungy, metal-esque hardcore anthem with the last song, which ironically serves as a better anthem for confidence in youth than “Confidence in Youth.” Bartel’s previously soulful and sweet vocals grit up and turn smoky, and when she and Sylvester belt out, “Live large! / Go out with a bang! / Bon voyage / my little sweet thing!” we are ready to follow them into battle.
Overall, the EP saunters along in a way where you can’t get it out of your head. Even though I wasn’t a huge fan of the first couple songs, The Kodiak Nightlife strikes me, more than anything, as a band that would be stupidly good live – their energy is contagious, and they obviously love what they do and who they do it with, which, when you get down to it, is what makes a good band into a great one.
