Chocolate Kiss - Les Boom Boom CD

Chocolate Kiss - Les Boom Boom CD

"An horrific number of records I buy these days have people on them who were in bands that split up before and I happened to really like. Why this is, I have no idea. Maybe it's wrong. Shut up. It's not.

Chocolate Kiss do the ex-member thing. And you can spot it right off the bat once the vocals are wandering across the mellow Christie Front Drive-esque introduction to "Right Out Or Right On" (the guitar sound is hauntingly similar though the music is a little more poppy). For singing in Chocolate Kiss is the wonderful Catfish Mauldin (leading me to wonder if he was bestowed with his fantastic monicker in much the same way as the one time Oakland A's pitcher, Catfish Hunter). Oh, what was that? You don't know who Catfish Mauldin is? Car versus Driver my friend, Car versus Driver. James Joyce is here too. CvsD. Hal Al Shedad. Georgia rock stars.

Musically, Chocolate Kiss are taking you back to '96-'97. Remember when emo rock actually sounded good? CK do. And you can hear all the wonderful influences of that time. I already mentioned CFD. Boilermaker is the big one, with the music having that same kind of melancholy air about it, yet without descending into self-pity or getting stupid slow. 6 minute mood crusher, "Halfway Around the World", being the best example, and best song on here - the way the song is slowly building up over it's duration before reaching a blissful calm moment around the 5 minute mark is a delight to hear. Then the two tracks directly after that brew in some Promise Ring bounce to perk things up and leave you with a far more upbeat feeling. "...impurities..." is positively riddled with an infernally infectious energy and arks back to the noisier CvsD days on the chorus with the unforgettable strained yet powerful, tune carrying vocals. Oh Mauldin, how we have missed you.

Really, Deep Elm destroyed this style of music through over saturation of the Sunny Day gene. Chocolate Kiss shoot some life back into it, and though it might just be a quick hit, it'll bring the smile to the face.

I can listen to this 6 tracker (skip the terrible bonus cover song at the end) over and over and over. Wonderful." - Andy Malcolm / Collective Zine