Kind of Like Spitting
“Bridges Worth Burning”
(Barsuk Records)
The opening track ‘Passionate’ has a great percussive click going on with the rhythm (music geeks with recognize the drum stick snapping against the metal of the snare). Moody and pleading. “I wanna re-live little minutes, but they just keep stacking up on themselves” just as the song gradually grows out of it’s snappy beginning and blooms into bigger guitars stomps. ‘Go over the top and come up from the bottom’. Sounds cool, huh? So does Kind of Like Spitting. Their music has a certain degree of intelligence that makes you feel cooler for listening to them. Singer Ben Barnett is the character of the band, delivering lyrics like they are manipulating the conversation while disguising them in little bursts of melody. The ‘boom boom boom’ breakout in ‘We are both writers’ is precious, although doesn’t gel with the almost country bounce the rest of the song is wrapped in. The Weezer set of sweater rockers should find a few numbers that drive hard on those big guitar chords, making it loud, but somehow… ‘mopey’ at the same time. Some sleepers to wade through here along with a couple of the ‘guy and his guitar’ numbers, but if one is familiar with the Barsuk label, shoegazing songs that meander along, too pretty for their own good is a common flavor for their bands. But Kind of Like Spitting do craft with notable skill. Subtle influences of The Cure show in the more ‘peppy’ moments and maybe The Owls for the more scattered, artsy paths. ‘Crossover Potential’ features (very recognizably) the backing vocals of Bob Nana (of Hey Mercedes) to give another reference point for the sound you’ll find here. (The best part, artistically speaking, is their CD jacket, which is stylie in itself, but between the lyrics, in the center spread, is basically a square with a little bit dropped out holding some text that reads “Holy shit I’m bleeding.” For no explainable reason. … I dig that. Slightly… over there. That’s a good place for Kind of Like Spitting.
Bushman
