Review Summary: Snaith's salad-pop/rock with a twist!
Transformation and progression are two adjectives that can easily describe the musical mind behind Caribou, Dan Snaith. Whilst, Caribou is currently in an electronic music phase, it wasn’t always like that. Actually, it was far from that, producing music with actual musical instruments, and some hints of cut and paste samples from old records, in the style of DJ Shadow.
“The Milk of Human Kindness” released in April, 2005, and it was Snaith’s 3rd full length effort, and the first under the Caribou moniker. It was a period were the revival of Americana was taking place, the new generations were starting appreciating bands from the “no wave” genre, German “krautrock” was put on the map 30 years after its existence, the Manchester post-punk/new wave scene of the late 70’s – 80’s became the holy grail, and a general feeling of creative nostalgia was in the air.
Caribou did not escape the general trend and in “The Milk of Human Kindness” Snaith created the most Krautrock record of his career, with a modern twist, of course! The albums consist of 11 tracks, of which almost half have song-structured compositions, as the rest works as intermissions between the actual songs.
“Yeti” the opener track, is a beautiful neo-psychedelic song with many detuned layers of synth over a monotonous drum & tambourine rhythm and with Dan’s angelic voice providing a soothing layer in the composition. “Subotnick” is the first intermission of the album and is basically a tasty sampled composition taken from “Love on a two-way street” by The Moments. “A Final Warning” is the most Krautrock song of the album bringing memories of Neu! and Can, using the same drum pattern throughout the track, while various layers of bass, guitar, synths and vocals are building an atmosphere. “Lord Leopard” is the second intermission and it is basically a hip-hop style drumming with a renaissance piano style over it.
“Bees”, my favourite track of the album, it is a slow rock ‘n’ roll song that reminds me of The Velvet Underground’s “Some Kind of Love”. Clean guitar harping with a little bit of crunchiness, and Snaith’s soothing voice, signing about nothing, adding a great melodic layer to the song. Of course, psychedelia is all over the place as multiple awkward sounds are added to the song. “Hands First” is the third intermission and it is basically 30 seconds of random drumming, followed by the sweet “Hello Hammerheads”, an acoustic song about someone who took the decision and left!
“Brahminy Kite” is a bossa-nova style song where percussions have the main role, while multiple synths and vocal patterns step on them creating a danceable tune. “Drumheller” is the fourth intermission, and is a collage of reversed and normal sounds. The next actual track “Pelican Narrows” it is a nice keys composition with added beats, but unfortunately feels unfinished. The last track of the album, “Barnowl” it is the second Krautrock style piece of the album, and it feels like this along with “A Final Waring” were created at the same session, as there is a sense of similarity and continuity between them.
Overall, “The milk of human kindness” is a sweet alternative pop album. There are some songs that will certainly make it to someone’s playlist, however it feels inconsistent, with no clear musical direction, as it jumps from one musical genre to another, and unfortunately this result to a confused listening session.
