Science For the Living - Kyte

Science for the Living

Kyte
Kids/Erased Tapes Records.

SCQ Rating: 42%

Kyte’s sound is of the all-encompassing variety, borrowing M83’s lush electro and Sigur Ros’ orchestral prog-rock, then filtering these influences into a sentimentality only New Age can cross. And because I first heard last year’s self-titled release blasting through a record store’s well-equipped speakers, I fell victim to the English band’s shamelessly technical charms. Beneath those layers one could locate a given song’s structure, however contemplative and repetitive, and those compositional bones truly separated the best from Kyte’s rest. Every Kyte song sounds gorgeous – that’s part of the problem – but on songs like ‘Planet’ and ‘Secular Ventures’, the band seemed capable of breaking out from their delicate clicks and whirls and truly rocking. That occasional anticipation and subsequent satisfaction is lacking on Science For the Living, their quickly served sophomore effort.

Picking up where they left off, this follow-up dives headfirst into reverberating keys and abundant beds of positive energy (yes… New Age lingo belongs here), except this time around the songwriting is virtually abandoned. One of the more notable tracks, ‘The Lost Blood’, is distinguished first and foremost because they haven’t written it before, and finds the band taking a synthed-out choir chorus and pounding it with electro languor. What makes it further noteworthy is that Kyte’s songwriting is less shrouded in effects; a bold decision that brings about depressing realities. Indeed, ‘The Lost Blood’ acts like a cohesive blueprint of how Kyte writes songs:
Step 1 (approx. 10 minutes) – Write a song. Make sure the chorus is a few simple words that rhyme effortlessly, ensure all verses be sung to the pace and key of its lead melody. All songs should end the way they begin, forget dynamics.
Step 2 (approx. 6 weeks) – Mix the song. Throw everything at it that’ll stick (strings, keys, xylophone, oboe, woodwinds, purposeful Sigur Ros kick-drum, laptop beats, tape-loops, etc.). Exploit the shit out of those instruments. Bigger is always better.
And then repeat. When Kyte aren’t being as forthcoming with their song-structures, we receive the seemingly endless faux-epicness of ‘Creating Our Reality’, which as a microcosm of Science For the Living proves just how far beautiful sounds can take you. Not far enough.

While this follow-up doesn’t suggest much of an evolution, it does hint at a subtle switch of direction as Science For the Living moves further from guitar bombast, closer to atmospheric balladry. ‘Strangest Words and Pictures’ and ‘No One is Angry Just Afraid’ are two of the more apparent Ben Gibbard impressions I’ve heard by a signed artist, and while they’re admittedly among the better songs here, they don’t have a lot of competition. Where Kyte flirted with cutesiness in the past, they’ve committed to it now, issuing a collection that best belongs next to Dan Gibson’s Solitudes series. Now there’s some competition.

Kyte - Kyte

Kyte

Kyte
White Wabbit Records.

SCQ Rating: 73%

I was strung several thousand feet above the earth, air-tight and strapped into a cabin-pressured capsule. Surrounded by stranger’s shadows and technicolour glares, my airline had advised us all to keep our window shades down so travelers could either sleep or watch the projected movie ahead. I had awoken from a ten minute slumber, somewhat stir-crazy with about twelve remaining hours to occupy myself, when I selected the first track of Kyte’s debut album. Cracking open my window-side shutter, I sent natural rays of light spraying into the dark cabin to see the first watercolour line glowing across the horizon. Nevermind that the first song is called ‘Sunlight’; truthfully, this self-titled release was performed, perhaps manufactured, for these small moments of wide-eyed clarity.

In fact, a spin through Kyte’s eight songs of prog-rock climaxes might find listeners aching for a melody that loves only itself, satisfied by a simple hook, a verse/chorus, some subtlety, maybe. Restrained nuances are in short supply here; a blunt fact that has as many positive implications as the obvious negative ones. Due to this band’s clear devotion to Sigur Ros, most evident in the near rip-off that is ‘They Won’t Sleep’, your first listen to Kyte will be memorable, one of those feel-good experiences where you tease yourself with the possibility that this is your next big band (a feeling enhanced by the band’s anonymity from the current indie-blog scene). Although the album’s warm and dramatic tones are unwavering, several highlights remain clear: ‘Planet’ is ferocious, a seven plus minutes of delayed guitar and echoed vocals that, if only once, punctures Kyte’s pristine sonic bubble, while ‘These Tales of Our Stay’ is a toy-box marathon of swelling strings that magnify the vocalist’s love-strung narrative.

Such a penchant for emotionally pummeling rock does cross into monotony, absolutely. Kyte suffers from maximal production - blown-out arrangements aim for blown-out heartstrings at every turn – which, by the fourth song, casually burns out many listeners who were enthralled after the first. And this is what divides the men from the boys: songwriting. Comparing a newborn band like Kyte to their obvious heroes, Sigur Ros, who are newly graduated veterans at this point in their career, seems like novice-bullying, but the proof is in the pudding: even Takk…, Sigur Ros’s climax-addled child that could’ve suffered a similar plight of overproduction, steered clear because in the end, each of those eleven songs were expertly written (when in doubt, take the acoustic litmus test and ask yourself if the song could translate well in its most understated single-guitar arrangement… Sigur did by releasing an acoustic album of those aforementioned rock climaxes to great success on Hvarf/Heim). Although Kyte is the band’s first album, and a usually impressive one at that (let’s also not forget that Sigur Ros’ first album, Von, was awful), the majority of this maximized material could not woo us without its chimes and trimmings. Thankfully, a needed respite from the bombast and phonebooth-vocals is found in ‘Home’, a relaxed instrumental that is smartly placed at the album’s midpoint.

This is an ambitious debut, one worthy of investigating and soundtracking the next time you find yourself miles above the earth, or the next time your life falls apart. In either case, Kyte works because it’s comfort music; easy on the ears, long-winded and almost always entrancing. Very soft and safe, which depending on your perspective (or current disposition), could be exactly what we’re all looking for sometimes. You could do a lot worse when facing the end of the world.