Kitty Kat Dirt Nap
I Am A Robot. I Am Talking Like A Robot. I Am A Robot. (2004)
Dan Perrone
What the hell?
Kitty Kat Dirt Nap? I Am A Robot. I Am Talking Like A Robot. I Am A Robot.? Song titles like "(If I Had A Purse I Would Carry) Breath Mints (In It Too)?"
It's overwhelming just how bad the band's name, album's name, and song names are. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but this was an immediate turnoff. It made me have no desire to listen to this whatsoever. A few weeks after receiving this, I decided to give it a chance. It's really not half as bad as the titles suggest, and there are some creative ideas to be found, but it is definitely a flawed album.
KKDN plays pop-rock music in the vein of Zolof The Rock And Roll Destroyer and Motion City Soundtrack due to the overly excessive use of the keyboard. There's a description floating around that these guys are "â¦Care Bears with uzis, declaring war on Weezer Island." I guess that's a decent description; creative to say the least. There are nine tracks to be found on I Am A Robotâ¦, and not much variety.
I'll start my bad and work my way up to the good. To me, this band is trying way too hard. They're like that really uncool kid in your high school class that really wants to be popular, so they go out of their way to do ridiculous things to be accepted. That's KKDN for you; not Care Bears with uzis, but outcasts trying to fit in. The use of the keyboards and male-female vocals, combined with the just plain lame song titles gives me this impression.
On the subject of vocals, lead vocalist Adam Eckhoff has a rather snotty-sounding voice, which sounds alright alone, but much better with backup vocalist and keyboardist Robyn Montella singing along. As a matter of fact, Montella's vocals are criminally underused; these songs could be improved dramatically if she sang more than she does on here. Sometimes Eckhoff screams, and I just don't understand it. It sounds horrible. It's like when Jim Carrey made the most annoying sound in the world in Dumb And Dumber. That's how bad it is. Completely unnecessary, and only uploads my notion that these guys are just trying way too hard. Most of the songs found here exceed four minutes as well, making this a tedious listen. Catchy songs should be concise, not long and drawn out. Shaving a minute off each song would do wonders.
I must admit - some of these songs really are catchy. The opener, "(If I Had A Purse I Would Carry) Breath Mints (In It Too)" (I'm shuddering as I type that) is actually a very good song, with keyboards used appropriately and an exceptional chorus to boot. The sixth track, "(Hold Me Closer) Tony Danza," is by and large the best song on here, because not only does it not reach three minutes in length, thus being very concise, but it actually rocks, something a lot of these songs fail to do. I think the band concentrated too much on being catchy and not enough on making really good songs. The starts and stops of "(Cookie Blocking) Java Scripts" are also pretty swell, and the bass intro of "(Sometimes I Doubt Your Commitment To) Sparklemotion" (â¦the fuck?) is creative as well, without being lame. Aside from the mentioned tracks, however, the album leaves much to be desired. The other half of the album suffers from the abuse of the keyboard and strange chord progressions, as well as plain and simple boringness. Like I said, this is a very flawed album.
KKDN have some good ideas. They are indeed somewhat creative, and they do have a handful of pretty good songs, but I Am A Robot⦠is just too flawed to be enjoyable all the way through. With some fine-tuning, this band has very high potential. Even though this release wasn't all that great, I am interested in hearing them in the future.
Standout Tracks:
"(If I Had A Purse I Would Carry) Breath Mints (In It Too)"
"(Hold Me Closer) Tony Danza"
"(Cookie Blocking) Java Scripts"