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MP3 Kelly's Heels - Blunt Cut
12 MP3 Songs
POP: Power Pop, ROCK: 60''s Rock
Details:
Review by Dawn Eden, Fufkin: "I can never understand how people who have apparently happy marriages can write and perform power pop songs with cute lyrics about dating. ... A few talents, like Bill Lloyd and Richard X. Heyman, can walk the tightrope, writing songs that are lyrically mature while retaining power pop''s juvenile urgency, but they seem to be the exception to the rule. When it comes to pure, unadulterated power pop, there''s no substitute for an artist with a painful breakup or three in his short-term memory.
Bob Kelly, who records as Kelly''s Heels, has a girlfriend, or so they tell me. Yet, you can tell from the songs on his fifth (!) CD, Blunt Cut, that, at heart, he''s single, gloriously single. Not in the swinging sense--far from it--but in the sense of being uncomfortably untied. Like Emitt Rhodes''s self-titled debut, or Nilsson Schmilsson, what one senses here is an artist who is at once incurably romantic and incurably neurotic. The narrator of Kelly''s songs wants desperately to connect, and yet knows all too well what perils await him if he makes the first step. It''s an intensely earnest feeling that''s at the heart of many of the greatest power pop songs ever written ... and its glorious frustration pervades Blunt Cut like a crumpled draft of an unfinished love letter. Musically, Kelly strikes me in many ways as a British version of the Rooks'' Michael Mazzarella ... , but with a voice and songwriting sensibility more reminiscent of Glenn Tilbrook. He plays all the instruments except drums, and his music boasts some first-rate influences--the Beatles, early Costello and Lowe, and the aforementioned Nilsson and Rhodes--but what is especially impressive is his attention to songcraft. Each song has what''s known in classic pop music terms as a "build"; it builds lyrically, musically (always coming in with a killer chord change before things can get predictable), and atmospherically. Not surprisingly, Bob Kelly is inordinately fond of ear candy, peppering his tunes with handclaps, cowbell, and the like, as well as layered, Townshendian guitars and overlapping, contrapuntal backing vocals. In the hands of a lesser talent, such attention to detail could result a giant mess, but Kelly somehow, magically, makes it sound simple .... It''s unusual to hear a Brit doing this kind of DIY pop--England isn''t exactly known for its Mazzarellas, Lloyds, or Bacinos--but he pulls it off. Whether he can maintain his lyrics'' delicate balance of romance and neurosis
is another question. If the little girls really do understand, I''m afraid my favorite Heel won''t be single for long."
About the band: Londoner Bob Kelly formed his first band with classmates at school in England at the age of 9. His first band The Ashes gigged regularly around London playing a fast-and-furious brand of post-punk power pop. Following a band name change to Kelly''s Heel''s, the first album Gone off Pop!?!, was released, followed by Blunt Cut. Bob met Jim Kimberley during the recording of Gone Off Pop!?! His ability to match and, in some cases, challenge, on drums the relentless pace set by Bob on guitar, has led to a positive creative partnership, and two more albums: Bent Over Backwards and Three Chord Brag, plus the Australian Pop Boomerang label compilation, Dig In!. The addition of the beautiful Isobel Morris on bass completes the live line-up. The band continue to gig regularly both in the UK and the US, and are mixing a new album for release 2006. Check out their myspace page!
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