ARTIST: Kyle Andrews
TITLE: Real Blasty
LABEL: Elephant Lady
GENRE: Alternative
BITRATE: 204kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 44m total
RELEASE DATE: 2008-00-00
RIP DATE: 2009-01-23
Track List
———-
1. Sushi              3:18
2. Naked in New York        3:18
3. Polar Bear            3:45
4. Call and Fade          3:33
5. Tennessee Torture Dream     4:00
6. Put Your Hands Up        3:13
7. Wavering Between The Real and  3:58
  the Abstract
8. Blow It Out           3:47
9. Take It To Heart         3:48
10. I Wanted to Paint a Rainbow   5:18
11. Cute and Paste          3:01
12. Bus               3:08
Release Notes:
I wrote that Kyle Andrews’ last album, Find Love, Let Go “goes out sounding like
the best college demo you’ve never heard.” Which is hyperbole, no doubt. But if
Find Love, Let Go was the promising demo, Real Blasty is the breakthrough album.
Every element of AndrewsÂ’ songwriting has matured: the skeleton electronics from
the last album have come grown some flesh, the melodies have reached a new
height of proverbial sing-along-ness, and the previously too-complacent guitar
jangles have given way to almost-rock music. In short, Andrews is more likeable
than ever.
Kyle Andrews
Real Blasty
Rating: 7.7/10
Elephant Lady, 2008
Real Blasty isnÂ’t perfect, but itÂ’s hard not to be excited about music that
comes this close to firing on all cylinders. Andrews takes the fundamentals of
pop—hooks, choruses, sugary sweet piano melodies (think Hellogoodbye)—and
dresses them in quirky formulas and an obsessive, precise attention to detail
(think Spoon). And as far as details go, thereÂ’s not a misplaced bit of echo or
distorted guitar on this album.
As an initially hesitant techno beat and twittering piano notes drive “Sushi,”
Andrews piles the familiar trappings of indie pop—the handclaps, the wordless
cooing and shouting, the synthesized bridge before one last triumphant outbreak
of chorus—onto a track that renders him a cutesy, melodic foot-soldier of Moby
the Great. This is the track that sonically reimagines the Microsoft-Paint-era
Technicolor radio on the albumÂ’s cover, a perfect anthem for certain Brooklyn
dance clubs. Speaking of which, “Naked in New York,” sounds less familiar: it
opens with interplay between synthesizers, but quickly moves into newer
territory—the drums kick in and an electric guitar wail takes over as Andrews
sings “I can’t give you up/I’m not afraid of the dark/I’m not afraid of the
dark.”
As a general rule, everything on Real Blasty is designed to be bigger and better
than any of AndrewÂ’s back catalog. We only get two ballads, the underwhelming
“Cut and Paste” and the absurdly sentimental album closer “Bus” (lyrics: “Take
my love/It’s all I am/It’s all I have to give/It’s all I have.”) The rest is all
energetic pop, drenched in kicking drum beats, keyboards, and synthesizer and
accented with just about anything else Kyle can pull out of his computer. “Blow
it Out,” while clearly within the realms of a pop song, shows that Andrews could
probably make a pretty decent dance album.
“I Wanted to Paint a Rainbow”—over five minutes long and perhaps the best song
in the lineup—pulses with all the adrenaline of a pent up racehorse before
finally finding release in a perfect two-minute piano outro that shows us
Andrews depth and vocal range. “It didn’t take much to let us down/Just one
touch pushed us underground/No it didnÂ’t take much/Turn me inside out/Start a
flood with my mouth/But I could never say enough/Oh no, what have I done?”
Andrews sings, eulogizing all the stupid mistakes every guy has ever made.
All of this expansion of sound comes at a predictable price: unlike on his last
EP, Andrews sounds more like your average, polished indie-pop artist, even if
his voice is still a little rough for the mainstream. But as if to show heÂ’s no
sellout Real Blasty comes closer than ever to unleashing AndrewsÂ’ closeted
rocker. “Wavering Between the Real and the Abstract”, for example, structurally
follows Radiohead’s “Bodysnatchers,” down to the mid-song acoustic guitar riff
and the meltdown ending. (It also features the albumÂ’s most Radiohead worthy
lines: “But I feel indifferent/I guess that’s something/I’ll fade away.”)
Overall, itÂ’s difficult to find much to criticize here. Real Blasty could have
been whittled down to nine or ten songs and be a better album for it. But this
is about as good as harmless, feel-good pop gets.
