Kisschasy - Hymns For TheNonbeliever

Thu 16th Aug, 2007 in Music Reviews

This is a release that many would have been anticipating for some time now, the follow up to 2005’s highly acclaimed United Paper People. After the success of their debut (certified gold, no less), the proof was definitely in the pudding that Kisschasy know a thing or two about writing a killer pop song.

If you were living under a rock and hadn’t yet heard this band, The Perfect Way To Meet is, well… exactly that. Given the prestige of being first cab off the rank, it is thick with the Kisschasy trademarks that made them so big in the first place; guitar driven pop rock, driven by Darren Cordeux’s unashamedly Australian voice and pumping drum work. Lead single Opinions Won’t Keep You Warm At Night is another classic example of their song writing ability, the extremely infectious chorus line one that will no doubt stick in your mind to the point you will begin humming it at random times.

The first half of the album is almost faultless, it showcases the band as everything they are and gives hope for what a band like this could stand to achieve if they keep plugging away in the fashion that they have been. As the album progresses into the second half, so too does their sound progress. Tunes like Factory and Spray On Pants are a little less glossy on the pop, heading more into indie territory. It’s not so much that this is a bad idea or that it even sounds bad, but the hooks are noticeably missing and appear as little more than filler alongside many of the earlier tracks.

This time around they stayed in Australia to record the album, but they weren’t going to leave this in the hands of anyone but the best. A man responsible for releases from the likes of Foo Fighters, Radiohead and the Pixies, Chris Sheldon, was behind the desk on this one. And to keep the big names coming, they enlisted the help of Jerry Finn (AFI) to mix both Opinions and Spray On Pants, and Howie Weinberg to master the album. Having heard some of this material live, the production appears to have taken a lot of the oomph out of the songs.

Knowing what they are capable of through previous releases, Hymns is rather underwhelming. It’s not a bad album by any means, in fact it was a rather enjoyable listen. In some ways this could be United Paper People Part II, but that’s half the problem. The other half to the problem is that even the catchiest tracks on this disc aren’t quite on the same level as many of those on the debut. There are the occasional numbers that are uncharacteristic of them, though, even these are more due to a change in tempo rather than sound.

Watch the clip for Kisschasy’s Opinions Won’t Keep You Warm at Night