killing boy - killing boy (03/09/11)

Track List:

01. Frozen Music
02. Call 4 U
03. cold blue swan
04. xu
05. Perfect Lovers
06. 1989
07. black pussies
08. Confusion
09. sweet sixteen


Call 4 U absolute win. Reminds me of old art-school, actually. Light guitar riffs, repeating catchy lines in the chorus, definitely like art-school's Paradise Lost/Missing years, except that killing boy's sound, especially this song, is more refined and grown up and grown wiser. Nostalgic, yet removed and detached, learned and grown from the past. More guarded, less wild and free. Still a young boy grown more sophisticated, less impulsive. Or a grown up sophisticated boy reminiscing an impulsive past where everything was now and all. Definitely. That's how the song sounds, as compared with similar sounding older art-school songs from a decade ago.


killing boy is art-school's guitar/vocalist Riki Kinoshita's new side project band with members of other bands from Straightener (also ex-art-school), HINTO and Nothing's Carved in Stone. However, seems like killing boy is definitely getting more attention and time from Riki than art-school is. I wonder if Riki is bored with art-school. They barely toured for their latest album last year, and this year, killing boy has really been making waves and A LOT of appearance recently (don't the other member's bands have their own band stuff to do??).

Anyway, I like art-school's guitarist, but seeing Riki's new band live and watching the live stream of their acoustic show, I think... maybe HINTO has a better guitarist! Or at least, a better composer.

But seems like this band, judging from the live shows and the album, is definitely composed of very, very talented individuals from various bands coming together together to make a bunch of awesome songs.

The songs struck me though, as being much less charged and much less driving than the live version, which of course, is quite a usual thing. I thought the sounds of these songs, while great, is a little more subdued in the album as compared to the live version. But I guess that's the appeal of live renditions! :D