KID KAPICHI: Here's What You Could Have Won (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

The English band Kid Kapichi started at the bottom of the social ladder. The band members worked at a variety of odd jobs to try and make a go of their musical adventure, which could have been a one-off. After a first album recorded during the confinement, the punk band has this time invested real studios with a new producer (Dom Craik of Nothing But The Thieves) to record its second album with the sarcastic title ''Here's What You Could Have Won''.

Unsurprisingly for a band very interested in social issues, this album is about post-Brexit and post-Covid England, two phenomena that have had a detrimental effect on the united kingdom economy. There is an urgency and punk seems to be the genre most likely to sound the alarm. This album could have been thought of as a concept album, as all its themes haunt the band's compositions.

This urgency is reflected from the outset with 'New England', which kicks off the festivities and proves that they will not be easy. On this tormented track, the band is joined by punk-hip-hop duo Bob Vylan who add a sharp dimension to an already violent message. The band play a series of punk anthems ('Rob The Supermarket', 'Cops And Robbers') with heavier than average guitars, sometimes close to metal. Jack Wilson seems to have taken all the anger of a people into himself and his vocals take on raging, desperate and even distorted accents.

Punk has often been decried because of certain clichés: two chords, drunken looks, torn clothes and above all unspeakable vocals. If it is true that the direct heirs of the false image conveyed by the Sex Pistols' manager did not last long (the others knew how to play and opened new paths), punk had the merit of enriching itself by not setting any barriers. This is the case with Kid Kapichi, who does not deny himself forays into other genres. The best track on the album 'Tar Pit' reveals all its richness. But the band dares to do a ballad exercise with 'Party At Number 10' and 'Never Really Had You', which fit nicely into the Kapichian corpus and are welcome breaks.

At a short 35 minutes, this album should reconcile those who think that punk is just "dirty noise". Kid Kapichi keeps the punk urgency on which he grafts all kinds of ideas, not shying away from any genre, including the most unexpected. The album closes with a sparkling and relaxing ballad, 'Special', as if to tell us that after having tasted the horrors of Brexit and Covid, England can still hope to find a glimmer of hope. - Official website

KID KAPICHI

HERE'S WHAT YOU COULD HAVE WON

AUTRE LABEL

ROCK