Kissing Tigers
Pleasure Of Resistance (2004)
Megan
Scott: Megan, I'm going to send you the new Kissing Tigers CD for review. You've actually got to do the review though, or I'm not going to send it to you, we love Slowdance over here, I won't put up with any bullshit with this.
Megan: Kissing Tigers! Yeah! I remember that EP! I vaguely remember writing that review! They're from California, right? Send it over, I'm in, it's been a year or so, I guess I could write a review. People have almost forgotten how much they hate me, they've moved on to hating Jesse.
A few days laterâ¦
Scott: Megan, you got the Kissing Tigers, right? Have you listened to it yet?
Megan: Yeah, I've got it⦠I've listened to it once or twice⦠but only while I was getting ready in the morning
Scott: Megan, can you get the review to me by Friday?
Megan: Scott⦠I thought we wanted it to be a review like the last one? You know⦠a bottle of wine⦠a few hours of Mario Bros⦠my roommate isn't even here to show me how to hook up Mario Bros and all I've got is vodkaâ¦
Scott: Vodka's fine, wine was for the EP, vodka is much more hardcore, it makes sense that you write the review for the full length "Pleasure of Resistance" while drinking vodka. Just think of the potential then if they ever release a double disk, you'll have to bust out the jager.
And so now, here I am. I got the bottle of vodka and I grabbed the CD⦠I popped it in the player, and then I went to read my review of the EP. Well⦠it certainly was something, wasn't it? That's what deadlines from Scott do to me, they drive me to drink. But enough of me⦠how about those Kissing Tigers, eh? Eh?
Well for that, maybe I'll start back at the beginning of the CD. You see, in the few minutes it took me to write my witty intro to this review, I had already made it to track three. Ten songs, 31.6 minutes according to iTunes.
My immediate impression when I heard the first chords: Wait, did I grab the wrong CD? Is this Minus the Bear? Then I heard the vocals and I realized, ah yes, the bratty vocals, I remember those, Kissing Tigers. That's when I started grooving in my seat. The opening track is called "So Stay in Love" and listening to it is a pleasure for your ears. The vocals remind me of the singer from The Jealous Sound and I like it! I like it a lot. Let's call this a less intricate mix of Minus the Bear and The Jealous Sound.
The second track is the title track of the album, we slow it down a bit for this. My only complaint thus far is that I wish the vocal mix was a little louder. I continued to groove in my seat. My head was bobbing. I called Scott to tell him he should be proud of me, I was doing my assignment. I kind of hoped that he didn't answer, because I didn't want to be distracted.
When we switched to track three, "Rooms by the Hour" I was still bobbing my head⦠then I stopped, wait⦠we slowed down⦠I couldn't hear over my typing⦠so I stopped. And then the bobbing commenced after about 45 seconds. Oh yeah. These songs sort of blend into each other but I don't mind. While reading the lyrics I take note of the upcoming song: "October 17, 1989." Some of you will remember this from the Slowdance Year of the Pug sampler. What a great sampler. This song had me anxious for the CD that was now pleasuring my ears.
This song is probably the most dancey of the first four. The synth line sounds like a water world in Mario Bros (whoa, where'd that come from?). All the hipsters will fall in love with this song and the hooks. I had to turn on the air conditioner in my apartment because I was grooving too much once this started. I take back my previous comparisons to The Faint though. This is much better than that.
This album is pop writing at its best. It's innovative, it's catchy, it sounds so good. Listening to this made me want to go see them live. Oh my gosh⦠it can be done on September 7th. Sure I start school the next day, but sometimes a trip to Champaign is just too important to pass up.
Track Six, "Picture Perfect" just started⦠and it sounds like Hot Hot Heat. We're now more than halfway through this album and I am having a lot of trouble sitting still. I'm wishing that Scott would get off of his "business" call and call me back so that I can talk to him about how much I'm enjoying this and how much I appreciate him sending it to me.
You wish that you were listening to this CD right now. I keep liking it more and more. The lyrics are so clever. "A Cruel and Jealous Death" just became my favorite track on this album. What a song of a dead lover. A woman moving on to a new husband she'll never speak of again. Scott just told me that this review will be my return to greatness. I hope that you all hate me with the same fervor that you did a year ago. Back to what's important, vodka, I mean, The Kissing Tigers.
So I guess that you want some drawbacks to this album, because if all I do is write glowing remarks, you're going to expect a ten or something (No, that's for the Velvet Teen's new album, "Elysium," also on Slowdance, Katie already said enough wonderful things about that, but ask Jesse about their live show, go ahead, just ask him). Well, this isn't getting a ten, because as much as I love it, and as great as the flow is, a lot of it just sounds too similar. Don't get me wrong, it's great. The inclusion of the song "I Died in a Mall" from the Trebuchet EP was a great choice. It's like "Hey, remember that awesome song from that EP we put out, here it is again!"
Whoa, just got to the last song⦠here come the politics on "Until Nothing's Left!" What's this? A pot shot at priests, our president, the FCC, corporate America? Wonderful. Smart, sexy, still dancey.
I really hope that you all take this review seriously, ignore everything that I say, other than the fact that you shouldn't have wasted so much time reading this babbling piece of garbage. Scott told me he wanted a long review. You should've said "forget Megan, I'm going to go buy this album regardless of whether or not she likes it, because I'll bet it's so good, it's on Slowdance, like it could be anything else." I mean this self-described "darkly-themed dance-punk" record is probably better than half of the stuff you own. This album is sexy. That's right, it's sexy. You just won't realize it until you get off your caboose and buy it. Did you actually read all of this? I'm proud. So proud.