Kaleidoscope

Reviews

Kaleidoscope Cities of Fear LP

Building on an impressive catalog of top-tier releases, KALEIDOSCOPE is back with their most savage offering to date. From the drop, they plunge into a wellspring of anarcho-punk influences, with “Burning Alive” sounding like a forgotten CRUCIFIX classic. Far beyond mere mimicry, KALEIDOSCOPE alchemizes a confluence of foundational influences, yielding an album that rewards repeated listens. Not dissimilar to companion bands STRAW MAN ARMY and TOWER 7, they springboard from the familiar into an uncharted territory that few bands are brave enough to consider exploring. Out of this willingness to experiment emerges a mutated creature that spews venomous punk into the face of a dying society. Cities of Fear is an obvious contender for album of the year for me, and I suspect many others. Crucial and recommended in the most forceful of terms.

Kaleidoscope Decolonization EP

This EP is the follow-up to KALEIDOSCOPE’s last release, the After the Futures LP, and it proves to be an even bigger middle finger to power. The band confronts colonization, greed, and imperialism in an angry punk kind of way, especially on the track “Decolonization” with the line “It’s decolonization or mass extinction.” Much of the album is reminiscent of ’80s L.A. punk. Think X or the GERMS, but the group occasionally gets a little more angular and noisy, which almost reminds me of ARAB ON RADAR. There’s also some more laid-back moments on the EP like the track “Girmitiya,” which pulls off a strangely hypnotic or psychedelic style of punk similar to CATHOLIC DISCIPLINE. I highly recommend giving this a listen and I’m looking forward to hearing more from these guys.

Kaleidoscope After the Futures… LP

This one dropped last year and justifiably popped onto more than a few folks’ 2019 “best of” lists. New York’s KALEIDOSCOPE has taken the screws to modern hardcore, not so much reinterpreting or combining elements from various crucial points in the historical procession of fads and subgenres, but reinventing them altogether. What if Pick Your King had been born of the Crass Records scene, for example? After The Futures… is nothing if not a complete album as opposed to a collection of tracks. “Feeling Machine” closes the first side with a perfect dose of driving desperation. It’s the kind of track that is supposed to end a side—after listening to Shiva (guitar/vox) spit fire for two minutes and then drop into an “Indecision Time” caliber micro-lead, you fucking need the break that flipping the wax mandates. They are more than capable of dropping a killer hardcore record, but there are only shades of that on this full-length, enough to make sure that you know that they know, but KALEIDOSCOPE are bigger than that. Experimentation and freedom; existence within the construct while altering the expectations of same. You’re gonna hear people talk about jazz, about psychedelic free-form nonsense when they talk about this record…but make no mistake: this one is Punk. With any luck, this one is The New Punk that will spawn a new generation of imitators who also get tired of doing what they are supposed to do, just like KALEIDOSCOPE did.