I’ve liked the group Kings Kaleidoscope for a few years now, and of the few “albums” of theirs that I own, they seem to have been getting better with each one…and not even at the expense of previous pieces of work.
So when they released their latest in October — Baptized Imagination — I went on as I’ve always believed a safe bet: I’m not wasting my money if I just buy the thing. So I did. And the jury’s still out, but it’s not looking good. This one’s a little more thoughtful and less frenetic — a quality I’ve enjoyed in their music. They’ve always had a good dose of meaningfulness in their lyrics, but this album seems to try a bit too hard for that at the expense of any kind of wildness. There are a few flashes in the beginning, but then it settles into meandering, mellow, kind of repetitive music. And the lyrics seem far too personal, presented in a way that very few people might be able to internalize as their own. Overall, musically, it’s just not quite there.
I’ve got a regular playlist of their stuff, from the first to the last, and from every album I have taken the majority of songs. I expected the same with Baptized Imagination, but instead, having listened to it a few times now, I find that there’s only one really decent song from the whole thing. The rest just don’t strike a note with me, and I’m not sure they can with many other people either.
I’m not entirely worried though. They’ve put out a lot of decent music, and I’m sure there’s more coming. If they stay on this path, well, I’ve got about two hours of good stuff on which I can fall back, and that’ll work. And next time, I’ll do a bit more research and maybe only buy the good songs…