How the hell can you begin to describe Spider Kitten? Amongst other things they are one of the most prolific purveyors of DIY heaviness you could imagine. A constantly changing collective that rotates around the central hub of founder and only permanent member Chi Lameo, as the band enters its seventeenth year they have been an absolute machine in the studio, producing an eclectic mix of noise that is as ever changing as their line up. I’m not sure how many releases they’ve done, but between CDs and downloads I’ve got 20 of their works, albeit their Bandcamp page lists 28 digital releases, and I know they’ve put more into the world including offerings on vinyl and tape for those who insist on formats as retro as the instruments the band play. Yet despite that, their live forays are few and far between, and I feel frankly privileged to have seen them play twice. Hell, I’ve got more of their shirts than live experiences, something I cannot say of any other band!
‘Concise & Sinister’ is practically an album title that is a review in itself, the four songs spanning a far too short twenty six minutes, the whole being a spiritual successor to their 2016 ‘Ark of Octofelis’, the four tales the music weaves inhabiting the same dystopian Sci-Fi universe. ‘A Glorious Retreat’ opens the album with a slow creep redolent of Radiohead but without the layers of self pity that particular art rock behemoth plasters their songs with; instead the bleak and tortured vocals are accompanied with howls of feedback, thunderous beats, and the sort of down-tuned leaden riffs that will have the most stoned of Doom fans practically stumbling shambolically with delight.
Never a band to stick to a formula, the next offering is in the form of ‘Alone & Forsaken’, a tale of loneliness and desolation first told by Hank Williams seventy years ago. Spider Kitten put their own stamp on the song, playing it more slowly, and with even more loss and longing dripping from every note than the original legendary creator managed to convey. Before, however, the listener can drift away into a bleak nostalgia, the band leap up and blast out the 45 seconds of spite and anger of ‘I’m Feeling So Much Better’ with a fire and fury that would have Barney and co of Napalm Death taking a step backwards.
To close off the album, and I’m going to call it an album rather than an EP, if only so I can sneak it past the editor into my top 10 of the year list 2018, Spider Kitten enter the realms of epic Prog with ‘Martyr’s Breath’, a retro otherworldly keyboard sound coming to the fore and leading the other instruments into interdimensional space. However, do not expect happy bright colours and a hippy-trippy idyll, this is the psychedelia for those who actively seek out the brown acid and darkness reigns supreme; I was experiencing Yes live on their fiftieth anniversary tour barely a day before ‘Concise & Sinister’ arrived for review, and I’ve little doubt if the sound of Spider Kitten had blasted out of the PA in the SECC half the audience would have practically shat themselves in fear!
Spider Kitten is a band that defies convention, puts a stiff middle finger up to anyone who would try and pigeon-hole their sound and style, and with their dark outlook on life and DIY approach surely encapsulate so much that is great in music that can only be found by wandering away from the path of the mainstream. Buy this album, and keep these sonic alchemists supplied with the money they need to continue their magical musical sorcery. That is all.
(9/10 Spenny)
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