Probably the first song I’ve ever heard about the anxieties of releasing new music, Kick Pistol’s ‘Downfall’ sounds a little like a Black Holes and Revelations B-Side in an alternate reality, and if you don’t know what Black Holes and Revelations is, maybe you should go study a little before diving into the world of angry, anxious British alt-rock outfits.
Kick Pistol are an angry, anxious British alt-rock outfit. Based in Hertfordshire/London, St Albans to be precise, the band is rocking a monolith of a groove, laced with potent melancholy and carefully calculated restraint on ‘Downfall’, their latest single. Cynical and satirical, the song plays around the idea of celebrating the misfortune of others, and the lyrical darkness is properly mirrored by the instrumentals and composition.
Boasting a distorted sub-bass line to go hand in hand with the stomping groove, the 4-piece set quite a commanding rhythmic presence from the song’s first bar. The instrumental is composed of abrasive, distorted guitars, and distorted, vocoder-processed vocals, and while all of that together might sound like a recipe for disaster, it is refreshing how professionally the group handles this seemingly extreme level of edginess with a crisp sense of space, a few lines of ethereal group aahs that make everything lighter, and a pair of clean guitar lines that gently arpeggiate chords to bring down the energy to levels comprehensible by humans.
The present and dramatic vocals are immediately catchy with their distinct texture and meandering melodies that go with the song’s tragic chord sequences, creating a song that would easily bring you to tears if the words were not so whimsically evil.
For the lovers of Muse, Kick Pistol can be hailed as flag bearers for that particular sound. Heavy, fearlessly edgy with an experimental edge, unafraid of being a tad too overdramatic, with a promise of lightening the burden by a general sense of not taking themselves too seriously. Packing this amount of punches in a song that’s less than 3 minutes in length, it’s kind of unnerving thinking of what they’re capable of pulling off in a 6-minute song.
