Mr.Kitty – Ephemeral (DCD Album – Negative Gain Productions)
Genre/Influences: Electro-pop, wave-pop.
Background/Info: ‘Forrest LeMaire’ aka Mr.Kitty is without a shadow of a doubt one of the hottest electro-pop American artists from the past years. His particular style to compose electro-pop music has something different from the other bands and is for sure the main reason to his success. “Ephemeral” is the seventh studio album and features 30 (!) songs. It’s a kind of conceptual release dedicated to a friend, Kahlas Austin Stambaugh, who passed away last year.
Content: Each disc features 15 songs and you can feel right in the beginning and right in the end it’s all devoted to the loss of a friend. That’s maybe also the reason why this album sounds like the most passionate and enraged one to date. The sound of Mr.Kitty has been never that ‘hard’ although it remains pure pop-like featuring strong melody lines and elevating choruses, great bass lines and the unique timbre of voice of the artist. There’re a few songs featuring duo vocals with a virtual female singer. This album also sounds as the most diversified one and that’s for sure because of some harder EBM elements and other technoid arrangements.
+ + + : Releasing an album with 30 different songs is a real tour de force! And especially when there’re less songs to throw away. Mr.Kitty has realized his opus magnum and this 7th album has something like electronic chemistry! Solid bass lines, elevating melodies and danceable kicks make this album absolutely essential. It’s a punchy electro-pop style with a naughty production. There’re potential hits featured on “Ephemeral”. It also is a brilliant homage to the loss of a friend, a meaningful composition an artist can only dream of once in a lifetime.
– – – : I’m not a huge fan of Mr.Kitty’s album covers. This one is clearly related to the concept of the album, but here again it’s not my favorite aspect from this artist. But when the music is just that great there’s no reason complaining about artwork!
Conclusion: Electro-pop music is too often linked to Depeche Mode clones, but luckily for the fine tasters in search of originality there’re artists such as Mr.Kitty. “Ephemeral” is a phenomenal artist; the most accomplished one in the band’s discography and simply the best one!
Best songs: “Be Alive”, “My Weak Side”, “Trauma”, “Molt”, “Anguish”, “Not Dead Yet”, “Make It Right”, “Disconnect Lover”, “The View Isn’t The Same”.
Rate: (9).
Artist: www.facebook.com/mrkittydm
Label: www.negativegain.com / www.facebook.com/pages/Negative–Gain/212061438836984
I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
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