by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
One of the best ways to discover a new band is when a band you already love gives a ringing endorsement. This was how I was introduced to Glasgow’s Kaputt - whose live show with Vintage Crop lead the Australian band to spread the good word. The band are set to release their debut album, Carnage Hall, on September 27th via Upset The Rhythm (Lunch Lady, Terry, Trash Kit), a gloriously kaleidoscope dose of post-punk and psych explorations. The entire thing feels like its covered in a hyper-glow, the detached skronks and spirals of the sextet sounding minimal in essence while there’s a lot going on in actuality. There’s a decent dose of bands like Devo, B-52s, and Dow Jones & The Industrials, but Kaputt are going their own route down those familiar paths with a campy exuberance of their own.
The record’s second single and title track (following “Very Satisfied”) opens with a quick cow-punk like riff and a bouncy post-punk tangle, their rhythms tightly locked in and never shifting from their propulsive formation. The song is about “an alternative dimension in which Judy Garland’s famous Carnegie Hall show was a total bust rather than the roaring success it proved to be.” It’s tongue in cheek with a sense of madness as they slowly shout syllable by syllable, “We’re very concerned, me and Judy” while the saxophone squeals and the rhythm eventually fades away for the psych wash of the bridge. The whole song convulses and shivers through an avalanche of sections in just under three minutes, a wild ride into the carnage that we’re all living in.