"I got a new rose, I got her good" - know the feeling when you find a new love?!....Oh yes you do, and this latest offering from Chromatics (Italians Do It Better label) has grabbed me by the heart & hand and could well be my favourite album of the year, pushing Mark Lanegan's superb 'Blues Funeral' off of my current top spot - well, we shall see and time will tell. Every once in a while, a jewel (no pun intended..!!) of an album appears, and 'Kill for Love' is just that.
Featuring the considerable talents of Italians Do it Better label co-founder Johnny Jewel, singer Ruth Radelet, Adam Miller and Nat Walker on guitar and drums respectively, Kill For Love skillfully mixes noir electro-pop and guitar spangled moments with pure cinematic bliss. I love the way this album sounds, the production is not overblown, no histrionics here...it is spatial & everything follows and fits so well together. It is a soundtrack for driving miles and miles to, yes... it is long, it is a journey going through day & night, a visceral thrill ...it invokes wonderful cinematic flashes - I think of Cronenberg's Crash, Lynch's Mulholland Drive, Deckard and Rachael in Bladerunner etc etc.
The opening track 'Into the Black', a cover of Neil Young's 'Hey Hey, My My' is beautifully executed by Radelet, it is sophisticated and understated and sets up the score of what is to come....there is a lot to love and from here on in, we are exposed to some spine tingling songwriting and composition. Title track 'Kill for Love' and its neon arpeggio electro brilliance is coupled with some New Order-esque guitar work and Ruth Radelet coolly tells us her story:
Everybody's got a secret to hide,
Everyone is slipping backwards,
I drank the water and I felt alright,
I took a pill almost every night
In my mind I was waiting for change,
In my mind I was waiting for change,
While the world just stayed the same.....
I can't remember if I like what I said
I can't remember it went straight to my head
I kept a bottle by the foot of the bed
I put a pillow right on top of my head
But I killed for love....
I can't remember if I like what I said
I can't remember it went straight to my head
I kept a bottle by the foot of the bed
I put a pillow right on top of my head
But I killed for love....
Emulating the heartbeat of the night, a stand out quartet of songs 'The Page', 'Lady', the glittering spire of 'Candy' and the sublime 'These Streets Will Never Look the Same' continue the journey - I really sense those feelings of being in limbo, of metropolitan isolation, decaying love etc and Chromatics convey this very well and in much the same way as say Burial does. These feelings only deepen as one gets totally lost in the instrumentals, particularly 'Broken Mirrors' and finale 'No Escape'.
Kill for Love is of breathtaking, hypnotic quality, it is the stuff that dreams are made of and I eagerly await Chromatics next chapter.
