Categories : Music Reviews, Rap + Hip-Hop.
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Rating: 2.5 / 5 Reviewer: Garth Paulson |
Kid Sister’s long delayed, once highly anticipated debut album Ultraviolet, is perfectly fine provided you don’t have to pay any attention to it. Put it on in some poorly lit area overpopulated with sweaty, gyrating bodies at a volume so loud you can’t possibly talk to said bodies and it’ll do its job, which is getting you to gyrate right along with them. Actually listen to the thing, though and you’ll be praying for some packed, dank room where the bass is turned up too high and there’s far too much neon and annoyingly coiffed facial hair just to make the process a bit less unpleasant.
Of course, Ultraviolet makes no bones about being a straight up party record. It’s awash with schlocky house synths, bone-rattling bass and a relentless, four-on-the floor pulse. It’s not music you’re supposed to think about, you’re just supposed to feel, and admittedly the rapid head nodding is almost automatic. The problem is that there’s never any let up. It’s one electro-banger, glow-sticks-and-vodka-coolers anthem after the next, making the album’s paltry 34 minute run time feel positively exhausting.
Okay, that’s a problem, not the problem. The real problem is Kid Sis herself. Though there are hints of wit on Ultraviolet, Kid Sister’s rhymes are overwhelmingly weightless throughout. Album opener ‘Right Hand Hi’ tackles the issue of getting one’s hands in the air (and introductions ad nauseum). ‘Life on TV’ isn’t some exploration of post-millennial fame or a sedentary population addicted to a box, but, well, it’s not even really about life on TV, it just uses the phrase as a hook. ‘Pro Nails’ examines the importance of cuticle maintenance. ‘54321’ deals with growing love and backwards counting. Again, Ultraviolet is club music, but its lyrics are almost comically weightless, with the verses acting as little more than 20 second space fillers before the chorus is repeated another six times.
So it’s big, dumb, ass shaking music, but that only makes the album’s most perplexing element even more pronounced. ‘Pro Nails’ first started popping up on mp3 blogs in 2006 and Ultraviolet—originally called Dream Date—was supposedly in the works ever since. As a point of comparison Kanye West, Kid Sister’s sparring partner on ‘Pro Nails,’ was still riding the wave of goodwill after the one-two punch of The College Dropout and Late Registration. In the time it took for Ultraviolet to see the light of day West had time to go Daft Punk, go T-Pain and make a fool of himself at awards shows several times. What could have possibly caused an album so profoundly innocuous to be scrapped once and spiral into years of delays is unfathomable. It’s not like anyone was agonizing over some grand artistic statement. Maybe on earlier versions the label was unhappy that Kid Sister and DJ Gant-Man only repeated the title of ‘Switch Board’ a measly 50 times instead of the 67 they pull off here (seriously, 67 times. Final tally, Sis: 66, Gant: one).
Whatever the reasons for the constant delays, they only help magnify just how slight Ultraviolet is. It was always clear that Kid Sister was going to be about the dance floor more than the headphones, but a smidgen of thought would have helped make the album something worth, you know, actually listening to.
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