After dropping a few EPs last year, the debut LP from The Kilograms is finally here. Hailing from Boston, the band plays a blend of reggae, ska, and punk that feels like it was plucked from the air in the mid-Atlantic and New England. It speaks to you with heart and soul, and you listen the same way. Every time I play the album I feel like I get lost in my thoughts, reminiscing on thoughts from my past, mixed with the lyrics of the songs- taken away to someone else’s memories. Duckworth’s vocals take me away every time, allowing me to drift into the music. The raspy voice feels so incredibly familiar and welcome. Duckworth also handles the guitars on the album and, while much of the album the guitar is also understated letting it carry a beautiful tune for the story to unfold, on tracks like “Lorelai”, the guitar gets to let loose a little and shows off some more flavor and expose more of the talent that is always available.
Joe Gittleman wrote a lot of the music and it feels a lot more like his solo work than his previous band, and it’s extremely welcome. The beautiful bass lines fit perfectly in the reggae tracks and feel catchy and the keys through the album by Sammy Kay add beautiful texture, whether It’s the smooth undertones in “Faith and Love” or the more fun and springy, Caribbean vibe added to “Lorelai”, it’s the texture that creates the entire feel of many of the songs.
Despite being the debut album of the Kilograms, it doesn’t take long at all to be able to tell that these men are veterans of the music industry and know exactly what they are doing. Every song feels special, the production is beautiful. Nobody is trying to show anyone up, it’s just beautifully produced storytelling. This is something I feel when I listen to music that straddles reggae and punk and two-tone, so I say it a lot in my reviews, but it feels like it’s about reflecting back on a full life, happy, wise, and sorrowful. It feels like maturing. It doesn’t have the upbeat edge of ska punk. It’s not inviting you to the pit, to share in anger. It doesn’t have the upbeat dance of two-tone or island reggae, begging you to push the anger aside for a few hours to dance and forget about the world. It connects on a different level- where it just wants you to be at peace. This feeling is so perfectly captured in the album’s closer, “Old Dog”. McDermott really does an amazing job on the drums in this song of laying the framework for a song that feels peaceful and laid back, while the lyrics turn the vibe upside down, but only if you can peel back everything else and listen for it.
The band dropped 4 singles leading up to the release of the album, and every one of them deserved to be a single. The title track, “Beliefs And Thieves” is one of the more upbeat and danceable tracks, and has some of my favorite lyrics (Nobody wins if we all just stay defeated). The keys do a ton of work here, along with some gang vocals to just help pick up the track and get the album rolling. “Lorelai” is definitely the most upbeat track on the album, as mentioned earlier, I feel it has a fairly Caribbean vibe to it. The other two singles are “Battles” and “Faith and Love”. Battles is a great track about knowing which battles are worth fighting and features some fun guitar sections that make me smile every time, but “Faith and Love” is the song I think best encapsulates the overall sound of the album. If I had to pick one song to show someone exactly what The Kilograms was all about it would be this one. It nails every aspect, it feels introspective in the way I’ve described, and the instrumentation feels perfectly executed and well-distributed. It never feels too busy or empty.
This album has an immediate classic feel to it. It deserves to be listened to on vinyl. It’s the type of band you want to see live. They’ll probably be playing in a bar, or a tiny venue with 30 people inside. They deserve to be playing in concert halls. The Kilograms are simply a phenomenal band, and every song is worth listening to and feeling. At the very least, go stream the album now.
Written by Gimp Leg
