Album review: Kisses – Heart Of The Nightlife
Kissses are Jesse Kivel on guitar and vocals and Zinzi Edmundson on keyboards and backing vocals. Though predominantly synth based, the addition of Kivel’s guitar gives their music a feel of ageless disco, the sort you might find in a Spanish nightclub with glitter balls and multicoloured disco lights. So what on earth is it doing here on Punk Rock Ist Nicht Tot I hear you ask? Well, I’ll tell you!
Juxtaposed with the sunny disco backdrop are the vocals of Jesse Kivel. Jesse sings in a decidedly downbeat melancholic fashion; think Droopy the cartoon dog doing an impersonation of David Byrne and you’d be in the right area. Add to that a general air of New York cool and Kisses are lifted out of cheesy disco territory into something infinitely more interesting.
Lyrically ‘Heart Of The Nightlife’ is quite playful as it sways from the irony free ‘so keep your heart strong and live long/and give kisses when you can’ of ‘Kisses’ to ‘Midnight Love’ where Jesse croons ‘I want to take you for a steak dinner‘, which in more innocent times would have meant just that, but in 2010 is loaded with sexual connotation that we won’t go into here as there might be children reading! The stand out tracks are the aforementioned ‘Midnight Love’ and ‘A Weekend In Brooklyn’ but of the nine tracks on ‘Heart Of The Nightlife’ it’s only the title track that doesn’t meet up to expectations, but then it’s an instrumental and I’ve never been keen on them.
I first listened to this on the way home from an particularly hard day in the office and with a few minutes it was able to bring a smile to my miserable face and that alone makes this a winner! 8/10
Mark Cousens
Out November 15th on This Is Music
www.myspace.com/blowkissess
Buy Kisses on CD
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