Now I'd like you to consider an addition to the short and distinguished list of quality Danish exports. The Kissaway Trail carry that all too easy description that a number of bands carry of 'sounding a bit like Arcade Fire'. The friend of mine who introduced me to them says they're like a cheerful Arcade Fire without the understanding of English. Or French, I'd be tempted to add. Either way, and despite the slightly lazy (albeit reasonably accurate) description, it's very much worth you checking them out. I'll now explain why.
Aforesaid friend (we'll call him Dave) first recommended the 'Trail to another friend on Facebook a couple of years ago. I stole this recommendation for my own fiendish purposes, and immediately downloaded the eponymous first album. I was hooked pretty quickly. The stand out song, the nonsensically titled "Smother + Evil = Hurt" (the '=' is pronounced equal rather than equals) immediately grabbed me. The jangly guitars and melodies with a full all round sound is comparable to a few bands, none of which occur to me right now, and the powerful drumming and vocal layering is great to hear. My favourite line is "Our kisses were lost and always windy". It could be evocative if we had any idea what they meant by it...
The rest of the album is along similar, heartening lines and while I don't doubt they fully believe in the sentiments of all the songs, there is also a feeling that they don't take themselves too seriously which allows the album to rattle along on a positive and generally uplifting note, while there is also some genuine craft in much of the songwriting.
Since moving to Brighton in September I resolved to get to see as much good live music as possible, and was verily delighted to see the Danish doyens of dangle were playing in town (see I can do it too). I tried to persuade others to join me, however Tim Robbins was playing on the same night and had taken the attention of many. So I pitched up to the gig on my own, always a slightly sad act, and was one of a decent crowd of 50-75 I'd say to enjoy a performance of vigour and fun at The Hope.
After I'd bought my advance ticket a fortnight before I had made sure I that investigated their follow up album Sleep Mountain, released earlier this year, on Spotify. It's another album with loads of potential, less raw perhaps, more structure songs and maybe in some way loses that innocent tone of the first, however the songwriting is still of a high quality and there's a few great anthems in there that make for great live material.
So at the gig I had reasonably high expectations. Their sound seemed made for live performances, and indeed it proved. Most if not everyone there knew their songs so it was very much a friendly crowd, a hardcore of which were dancing far too energetically for a Wednesday night, but the guys put in a great deal to please everyone and must have gained some new fans. I came away delighted that I'd made the effort, if slightly disappointed that from what must be close to 2 hours of album material they'd only played for a little over an hour.
To look at they're a slightly strange but reasonably generically Scandinavian looking group of individuals, whilst in action they are really quite an entertaining bunch to observe. In addition to the 5 above they also had another fellow with a ginger bowl haircut whose main role appeared to be bounce up & down with a tambourine occasionally joining in the 6 part harmonies the Trail do love to throw in. They chop & change instruments although they do have generally defined roles. My favourite was the tall bass player chap (4th from left, above) who I think was Rune Pederson, who is totally loving every moment, and occasionally looks entirely surprised to be on stage doing what he clearly always dreamed of doing (albeit maybe not in venues like The Hope, which is quite the pokey shithole).
So, to answer my question - why do I think you should listen to The Kissaway Trail?They write well crafted songs that could make you smile just through their persistent optimism and enthusiasm.
- They do some quite frankly outlandish things with the English language that can't fail to please, if not amuse.
- They sound a bit like Arcade Fire, who you probably love.
- If you have a chance to see them live, you will be able to appreciate them even more by having listened to them, and will be thus heartily pleased by their on stage personas and presence.
- They arguably have more artistic merit than Lars Ulrich.
- They might just save the world.
Seek them out. They're on Spotify, Myspace, Facebook and even exist in real life or through the purchase of something call a "Compact Disk".
