Electroforest (2014)
Release date: November 4th 2014
Catalog number: CPR014
Format: CD album, 3 panel digipack
Running time: 71:59
01. Electroforest: entrance
02. Tidy up you pig
03. Champions of delay
04. Vanilla killer
05. Greatest loves are secret
06. Electroforest: detour
07. Jammed drainpipe blues
08. Snowstorm
09. Malice
10. Flower of gas and smoke
11. Electroforest: tree of lights
12. Jackie o lantern
13. The thriving landlords
14. Amplification of the senses
15. Happy birthday party monster
After the tour de force that "How the mighty have fallen" was, The Kiss That Took A Trip loosens a lot of tension on the listener and makes a triumphant album that recaptures much of the essential sense of melody found in earlier works, while still keeping the epic scope and adventurous nature of the previous album, coming out of the other side of the tunnel with a "best of both worlds" effort, but with its own internal logic.
The record is built in a subtle triptych structure and features the boldest use of vocals found on a work by The Kiss, even to the point of putting them in the forefront or having them from beginning to end, like in standard pop songs. The lyrical themes are as abstract as always, but they gravitate towards much more personal issues of isolation, and the need for likeminded people and finding your own space. To summarize, the vindication of comfort zones.
The sound is even more diverse than in the preceding album, with meticulously well-rounded songs like the first single "Vanilla killer", the new wave reminiscences of "Greatest loves are secret", the fuzzy post-rock in "Tidy up you pig", the newfound acoustic simplicity that "Amplification of the senses" releases, the spooky collages that fight against each other in "Jackie o lantern" and the closing title "Happy birthday party monster", a number heavy on drones that resembles a film soundtrack.
That doesn't mean the album is devoid of the things you'd want to expect from The Kiss That Took A Trip. "Electroforest" contains its fair share of epics ("Snowstorm", "The thriving landlords" and the swirling "Flower of gas and smoke"), instrumental complexity ("Jammed drainpipe blues") and skyrocketing minimalism ("Champions of delay").