Down Below It's Chaos
by Kinski

Album details

US: 21 August 2007 on Sub Pop
UK: 20 August 2007 on Sub Pop

The loud, instrumental (though there are actually three tracks with vocals here, courtesy of guitarist Chris Martin), experimental rock band from Seattle returns with a third release for Sub Pop.

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The critical consensus

The website Kevchino hails the album as "one of the most solid recordings in the noise/experimental genre in recent memory," while Dusted calls Down Below "Kinski’s most complete effort," indicating that "Kinski seems to have finally found a way to integrate its two halves [of rock and ambience]." Exclaim! states, "While Down Below may not throw any big surprises, it does what every good rock album should: rock."

The BBC’s Nick Reynolds certainly prefers previous Kinski albums, and isn’t a fan of the vocal tracks: "The trouble is that with a singer on board … Kinski are in danger of sounding just like any other band." Similarly, The Onion feels that "the character-free vocals on a handful of the cuts seem like add-ons to a style with little need for embellishment." Chart Attack, however, thinks Martin’s vocals (which every critic compares to those of Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore) are "a nice, light touch," with the album as a whole "another solid effort."

Pitchfork feels that as Kinski’s most accessible record, Down Below "could be the record that those put off by Kinski had always hoped they’d make," but it also "sounds relatively tame" compared to past efforts. Treble agrees that the disc is accessible ("There’s something on Down Below It’s Chaos for everyone."), but sees that as a positive, not a negative: "Do you like the gauzy, yet thrilling detachment of post-rock? Then you’ll love Kinski! Do you like melody with your metal and accessibility with your avant-garde? Then you’ll really love Kinski!" Delusions of Adequacy is bored with the record, calling it "formulaic and predictable." And Stylus complains that the album "drips with underachievement."

Three albums in, there’s sometimes a feel that Kinski is treading the same terrain it’s staked out since its self-titled EP five years ago. But even if that’s so, it’s a niche that’s packed with thrills more often than not.

- Doug Wallen, Hartford Courant

Review roundup

Tracklisting and media

1. Crybaby Blowout
2. Passwords & Alcohol
3. Dayroom At Narita Int’l.
4. Boy, Was I Mad!
5. Argentina Turner
6. Child Had To Catch a Train
7. Plan, Steal, Drive
8. Punching Goodbye Out Front
   
9. Silent Biker Type

Also on the web

• Official Artist Site
• Kinski @ Sub Pop
• Kinski @ MySpace