Kayo Dot / Hubardo
Album: Hubardo   Collection:General
Artist:Kayo Dot   Added:Sep 2013
Label:Ice Level Music  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2013-09-15 Pull Date: 2013-11-17 Charts: Loud
Week Ending: Oct 27 Oct 20 Oct 13 Oct 6 Sep 22
Airplays: 1 1 1 2 2

Recent Airplay
1. Oct 24, 2013: Deathcrush
Vision Adjustment To Another Wavelength
4. Oct 05, 2013: ThermoNuclear Bar
Vision Adjustment To Another Wavelength, Floodgate
2. Oct 17, 2013: Deathcrush
The First Matter (Saturn In The Guise Of Sadness)
5. Oct 03, 2013: minimum entropy sub awyeh
Zodelida Caosaji (To Water The Earth)
3. Oct 10, 2013: Deathcrush
The Black Stone
6. Sep 18, 2013: The ThermoNuclear Bar - _Shrine_ Live
Vision Adjustment To Another Wavelength

Album Review
The Grunt
Reviewed 2013-09-10
Artist: Kayo Dot
AMAZINGLY UNIQUE PROGRESSIVE METAL!!! This is not just a bunch of people showing off on their instruments, it's more like if some 70s prog or jazz-fusion band (Gentle Giant, Yes, Genesis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, etc) decided to get into sludge / doom / experimental / post-metal. Guitars are often overdriven but not super crunchy, there's no chugging at all, growly and screamy and clean vocals, expect woodwinds and horns, every song hits at least two different genres of music and probably merges them, complex, dissonant. It's not the kind of stuff to headbang to, but I was definitely wiggling all over my chair going "ohhhh yeaaaah" for most of this album!

All tracks are FCC CLEAN. All tracks are awesome.
Fans of heavier stuff, check DISC ONE - #1,4,5 (see parenthesis for approximate genres)
Fans of depressing rock, check DISC ONE #6
For fans of Jazz Fusion, DISC TWO #5

Disc 1 - Mostly heavier stuff (except #6)
1.) > > > (DOOM DRONE) Starts soft. Breathy growls over sparse clean guitar, violin, ambient sounds, occasionally punctuated with dissonant vamping and drums. After 6:00, it starts transitioning to conventional song, echoey swirly speeding up.
2.) Starts with some clean guitars, after 2:00 brings in some woodwinds, 70s progressive sound (gentle giant), whispery vocals, around 5:00 goes sludge and eventually COMBINES all previous styles explored into one.
3.) Faster, starts metal with disorienting echoed vox, slows down to clean with tremeloed guitars, eventually horns and a nice dissonant jam.
4.) > > > (SLUDGE NOISE MIDDLE EASTERN) Hectic just barely together punctuations of disorienting sludgy sound with some cool psychedelic sounds buried in the background. Breaks to middle-eastern-ish flute jam.
5.) > > > (JAZZ FUSION + BLACK METAL) dissonance into a twinkling piano and synth interlude followed by some speedy octaves tapped out on guitar
6.) > > > (GOTHIC ROCK) Slow simple bass, drum, and synth with clean echoey meditatively sad vocals, some light psychedelic sounds. Synth changes feeling at 5:15, slowly pulsing and increased drum activity -- feels dense where beginning felt sparse. Starts slow fade out at 9:00.

Disc 2 - Mostly softer stuff (except #2)
1.) soft (chimes, piano, horns, strings), 2:45 neofolk-ish with multi-second silences and slow call-and-response with a choral group, ephemeral oooohs and aaaaaahs from the chorus intertwining with the sax
2.) Fuzzy sludgy growly metal assault with saxes resonantly howling in the background. Some psychedelic synthwork in the middle. Dense.
3.) Expansive post-metal feel. Clean expressive male vocals with choral singers supporting. Last 10 seconds are SILENCE.
4.) More soft post-metal feel for first 4 minutes then some stoner-fuzzed-out guitar feedback play with punctuated hecticness (fast drums with slow a slow melody on top). FADES OUT EARLY.
5.) > > > (JAZZ FUSION) Extended rock out!!!!

-The Grunt

Track Listing
1. The Black Stone   7. The Second Operation (Lunar Water)
2. Crown-In-The-Muck   8. Floodgate
3. Thief   9. And He Built Him A Boat
4. Vision Adjustment To Another Wavelength   10. Passing The River
5. Zodelida Caosaji (To Water The Earth)   11. The Wait Of The World
6. The First Matter (Saturn In The Guise Of Sadness)   .