Regular viewers may remember my excited anticipation way back at the start of the year for the forthcoming and long awaited debut album by Kicker well it's finally here, and "Wild Mercury Years" doesn't dissapoint. Taking up the baton passed on by their handful of wonderful singles it continues to mine the rich vein of classic guitar pop, but the added introduction of male vocals on some songs bring out memories of the likes of early Lloyd Cole, or The Caretaker Race. The whole album has the quality of a band unconcerned with the task of spotting the latest trend, but concentrating on their pure love of songs from across the musical spectrum. So you'll hear echos of 60's pop, indie guitars, northen soul, and even country. Then in "Local Gentry" you have a Lee and Nancy style duet that each time I hear I decide yep that's my favorite song on the album, and then after the next song it changes again.
The band have recently embraced myspace.com and here you can read their history and a list of band members that is closing in on The Blue Aeroplanes in its length. Both here and at the band's webpage you can download a whole slew of MP3's including a great song "Paraguay" which missed out on being a single and really should have been and two great acoustic versions of earlier singles.
Download - Kicker - Paraguay
Lots of Kicker MP3's can be found here
The Kicker myspace.com page can be found here
Get the band's CDs in the US from Darla here
1 comment:
I downloaded "Prarguay" to my ipod after a fast skim of your post. I have been playing it thinking how much it sounds like something from Lloyd Cole's first two CDs. The whole time I assumed it was one of these secret 80's bands you write about. I had no clue it was a current band! Does the guy do much singing? I prefer him to the female voice...
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