Kids With Torches – Carried Over Trees
Record Label: Unsigned
Release Date: June 4th, 2012
British indie-pop duo Kids With Torches is a band I came across on AP.net, and was quite interested by their RIYL, which had Wisconsin indie band Bon Iver in it. As a fan of that band, I was compelled to check Kids With Torches out. I was quite impressed with what I heard, actually.
It starts off with “The Beacon,” and ironically, Beacon is the name of the new Two Door Cinema Club record. At times, this band does remind me of them. However, the song starts off with a very slow and haunting synth riff that’s pretty interesting. It sounds really cool, and it certainly gets me pumped for what’s to come. After about a minute or so, vocals are finally heard, and they’re just as haunting as the music. They’re not the best I’ve ever heard, but certainly not the worst, either. They do fit the music, though, and that’s always a good thing. Their vocalist does sound like an indie-rock/pop vocalist, well, specifically a British one, because they are British, as I mentioned earlier. The song itself is rather lovely. It’s about five and a half minutes, but it doesn’t really drag on. However, that’s the problem I have with this record, and it’s that some of the songs really drag on, which makes it a boring listen. Well, not really boring, but some of the songs are way longer than they needed to be. That’s ultimately forgivable, because the album is about 37 minutes long. So it’s a decent length, and I can ultimately forget about that.
Next track “Reconfigured” sounds very similar to “The Beacon,” and that’s another problem I had with this record; a lot of the songs sound so similar, I can’t distinguish them from one another. While that’s not really bad, it does hinder my enjoyment a bit. This is another one of the songs that does rather drag on. It’s only about 4 minutes, but it’s a bit longer than it needs to be. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy this album at all, because I do like it. I like it a lot, but there are a few glaring things that do strike me every time I listen to it. They don’t completely hinder my enjoyment of the record, but they are quite glaring to me.
As for the rest of the record, it’s rather nice. It is quite relaxing, and slightly haunting music. Not in a bad way, but it certainly is haunting. The only problem I have with it is that it really drags on. Some of the songs on this album are more than 6 minutes, but like I said, I can forgive that. Last song, “All Was Still,” is a nice closing track; it doesn’t drag on at all, and actually sounds quite nice.
Overall, this is a record I would recommend for any indie fans; the record does tend to drag on in places, but it’s ultimately forgivable, because it’s only 37 minutes. Everything else about it is great, but that’s the only problem I really had.
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