Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 2.5 / 5 Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
Over the course of the past decade, Kaki King has been trying to outgrow the label of guitar virtuoso – or even worse, female guitar virtuoso – and enter the realm of singer-songwriter. With her two most recent albums, 2008’s Dreaming of Revenge and this year’s Junior, she’s done pretty much that. There’s just one problem; as her songs increasingly incorporate vocals and pop structures, they exhibit less personality than the instrumental work from earlier in her career.
Junior is a pretty joyless album, with some exceptions. ‘The Betrayer’ and ‘Communist Friends’ are the highlights here, specifically the former, thanks to its intriguing narrative. But the majority of the rest of the album is done in shades of gray – a sameness in tone bleeds throughout the album unabated. The best song on the album is ‘Everything Has An End, Even Sadness,’ an instrumental piece that suggests an ocean of depression far more effectively than any words could hope to.
