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Here's what people are saying about Fun Anxiety:
Room 13
http://www.roomthirteen.com/cd_reviews/10950/Kill_The_Captains__Fun_Anxiety.html
(11 out of 13)Fun anxiety kicks off with the almost trance inducing drumbeat and guitar riff of “Santino”. The opening track could be compared to early Radiohead material, which is not a bad thing in any sense and sets the mark high for this debut album by Kill The Captains. Next up is “Spot The Leopard” which can only be described as a disjointed pop song, sounding like one would expect most indie rock bands to sound like if they were pushed head first into a musical blender.
This is where the album goes in a new direction, with “Rope.” This song is more straight forward, and downright emotional. It showcases the lyrical talent of Leon Carter exceptionally well along with the skills of the guitarists. The first two and a half minutes of “The Yellow Brush” are essentially a wall of noise, but set the scene beautifully for the haunting vocal melodies and then upbeat, jangly choruses there are to come. “Dutch Rudder” is the first instrumental track to appear on the album and begins with interesting xylophone playing and is then merged with some off key piano. All of this music is moulded with effects which keep the short but important track remarkable throughout.
“Clovers” slows the album right back down, and provides the listener with some “food for thought” so to speak. The second half of the album begins with another instrumental track, “The Missing Canoeist.” This instrumental doesn’t quite have the charm of the previous one, but is decent nevertheless. It is straight up guitar-driven rock which gains some momentum about halfway through but doesn’t take you anywhere new, but for some reason remains good to listen to and keeps you fascinated. “Rummy” is the first single taken from the album and it is easy to see why. On the first listen you can effortlessly picture people all over the country shaking down and roaring along to it in nightclubs and venues.
“Lebanese” is another journey for the listener through the emotional of Leon Carter’s mind, and draws you back to the earlier Radiohead comparison, especially with the guitar and bass. “House Band at the Asylum” is wacky, random and hands down the strangest track on the album, with a bass line fit for a Primus album. “Cellar Dweller” is the highlight of the album, with the song growing and ready to explode with every verse which it then does just as you expect it to calm back down. This song is easily single material, and stands out head and shoulders above a lot of the music on the radio today. Album closer Harper’s Call” is a love song without a shadow of a doubt, and is perfect for the end of a superb album by a relatively young band.
“Fun Anxiety” is a terrific listen from start to finish, and if this is where British music is heading, you best book your ticket for the ride.
Norman Records
http://www.normanrecords.com/records/115960
(4 out of 5)I've never really felt anxious about having fun. I once felt anxious about sellotaping a frog to my shoulder, but I got through it. I was young and foolish then, I feel old and foolish now. This four-piece's new album is a taut sounding slick record that pushes the emotive indie rock button and never lets up. It has a really sweet sound and the musicianship's equally sweet. It has an experimental side that should sit well with some folks. Some moments are quite epic sounding and if you are a fan of Appleseed Cast or maybe Itch then you should bum this.
Vanguard Online
http://www.vanguard-online.co.uk/1005AKTC.htm
We liked the EP but that was bloody years ago. What have Kill The Captains been doing since 2008? Making this album, that’s what. At first glance, with less psychedelic wig-out and a more user-friendly sound, KTC have rubbed off some of the rough edges. The sound is an indie one, with lots of stop-start, shift of rhythm type of stuff. Then they go and surprise the listener with Yellow Brush and it’s rock-out soundscape. Then they leave off the wiggy title track (featured on the aforementioned EP).
Are they too clever or just very clever? The opener fuses eighties sounds like Aztec Camera with a much harsher noughties sound to tell the story of a chimp flinging hand-crafted missiles at zoo visitors (and being castrated to stop his cleverness). Track two, Spot The Leopard is chugging, speedy indie, with a vintage guitar sound, very clean and lyrics full of sardonic notes. Third track, Rope, is smart as a sticker too, reminding me of agit-pop bands of the eighties again – all jangly guitar, furious rhythms and complex lyrics; “Don’t buy a weapon with a blunt edge, they’ll use you as a wet stone”. Then, as mentioned, it’s into loud-land, with a song about sex and seduction preceded by hammering riffs for a few minutes, then accompanied by delicately ticking bass and percussion. Dutch Rudder is nobbut a scrap and Clovers is a piano-led ballad. Missing Canoeist is a leftfield instrumental – practically a rock ballet. Rummy is the current single. Lebanese is a crooned, gentle piece. House Band At The Asylum is a snippet that sounds like you walk into a room of a band at full cacophony then leave and walk away into the next song – Cellar Dweller – a crzy apocalyptic religious rant. The final track has a lonely echoey acoustic guitar refrain that recalls mid-seventies Jonathan Richman in its perfect happy-to-be-sad-ness.
Musically, Kill The Captains are all over the place in terms of influences and directions, whilst clearly having assembled each song carefully. It’s an album that rewards repeated listening, new aspects appearing at each turn. It’s been recorded so each part is clear and real, emphasising the surreality of the musical rollercoaster and could well garner the kind of fanboy adulation that Radiohead built with their first album. Very clever and very winning. Tastes of sherbet and liquorice.
17 Seconds
http://17seconds.co.uk/blog/2010/05/16/album-review-kill-the-captains/
(4 stars out of 5)I really hadn’t been sure at all that I was going to like this album a few months ago. When the first single off the album ‘Rummy’ dropped on the mat at 17 Seconds Towers, it didn’t do much for me.
Yet the album has had a considerable amount of play over the last few weeks, growing on me with each listen, and I’ve even grown to quite like the aforementioned single. The Sheffield-based four piece have given us an album that manages to take notes from math-rock type bands like Shellac and Future Of the Left, whilst also exuding the fun of bands like supergrass. I’d be reluctant to say pop-punk, because that would be frankly inaccurate.
Over the course of the twelve tracks herein, the stall is set out for a band who give the impression that they’ll be awesome live and have the inventiveness and the potential to develop over the course of successive albums, rather than simply repeating themselves over and over again. I’m kicking myslef over my initial reluctance, because this is really a very impressive album.
Kill the Captains join Super Adventure Club, The Scottish Enlightenment and Cuddly Shark in showing Armellodie to be one of Scotland’s greatest contemporary labels.
Here's what people said about Rummy:
Organ magazine
http://www.organart.com/aaasingles3.htm
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
KILL THE CAPTAINS – Rummy (Armellodie) – Sheffield’s Kill The Captains back with a new three track collection of slightly scratchy slices of that double jointed pop of theirs. Scratchy English new wave flavoured wrong pop with a more than healthy skip in that slightly off-line step of theirs. Think something near Les Savy Fav, a not so lush and far more scratchy XTC, that if Pavement were from and English town sound of bands like Herzoga... that smell of gin so you let him win. B-side Reverse Psychiatry is the stand out song of three here with that shimmering two-note repetition that slowly builds up to some kind of frantic battle of ascending chord patterns and swooping vultures and.... Third track Supermarket Sweep is a “stripped-down yarn”, a “feel good ditty” about a security guard being trampled to death on the first morning of a Wallmart Black Friday shop sale... Three rather different songs that both stand on their own and work so well together as a collective whole - maybe Supermarket Sweep is the standout track? Then again Rummy is rather good... www.myspace.com/killthecaptains or www.armemellodie.com
Bluesbunny
http://www.bluesbunny.com/tabid/122/xmmid/474/xmid/2188/xmview/2/default.aspx
It's been a while, or at least I think it has, since anything from Sheffield based band Kill the Captains crossed through the threshold at Bluesbunny Towers. So the question is - have they still got their oddball charm?
The answer to that would be yes. Leading off this single is "Rummy", a song that stumbles about the room like a drunk guy trying to be cool with words of skewed wisdom spewing from his mouth as he hums a melody that sounds like a retro conflagration of Duran Duran and the Jesus and Mary Chain.
"Reverse Psychiatry" is a rather more controlled and melodic little ramble of a song that has a mid song change of mind then builds in a classic Britpop way to a serious guitar thrash. Just the thing to get you bouncing inside your sister's Alfa Romeo just before you crash it.
"Supermarket Sweep" doesn't have any references to Dale Winton - thank God - but instead delicately balances the insanity of the consumer behaviour against a neo folk accompaniment. Quite classy and clever really.
Playing out loud
http://www.playingoutloud.co.uk/playing_out_loud_reviews.html
Kill The Captains could never be accused of being lazy. Along with running their own studio - “Red Cloud” - and promoting their very own regular club night “Mutiny”, the Sheffield band also find time to record immensely likeable singles like “Rummy”.
Sure, the riff is straight out of an Arctic Monkeys songbook but let’s focus on all the other lovable elements. The cutting lyrics about modern day Britain, camp rock handclaps and the fact that it is played with a simply ferocious energy. Kill The Captains are on to a winner here.
The unnervingly slow build up to the 1st b-side “Reverse Psychiatry” eventually gives way to unorthodox chord patterns and a rabid climax whilst, just to confirm how clever they are, KTC decide to bring the curtain down on the single with the stark, acoustic arrangement of “Supermarket Sweep”. Musically it is a soothing and mellowing tonic to the carnage that preceded it. Yet lyrically it turns out to be about a security guard being trampled to death at the Walmart sales!!
It seems Kill The Captains have wonderfully black humour by the bucket full to go with all that talent. It’d be sickening if it wasn’t so exciting. The album promises to be a cracker!
Here's what a few people said about the the first ep:
Sandman
Four track EP from Sheffield noisy rock quartet Kill The Captains has three 2 1/2 to 3 minute sound bombs and the longer, live favourite "Fun Anxiety" to close. Ensuring great production by using Messrs Smyth and Sanderson at 2Fly this impressive debut offering by the hard gigging Captains hits you in face from the feedback intro on opener "Bottom Lip" with its edgy guitars through the pacey "Chrunt" with its God complex references onto the laid back lullaby "Long In The Tooth" with hints of Morrissey in the vocals.
Music OMH
http://www.musicomh.com/singles/kill-the-captains_0408.htm
Kill The Captains have been gigging around Sheffield for a couple of years now, setting up the popular Mutiny club night and grabbing the odd support slot with the likes of Actress Hands.
Their debut EP shows that they have less in common with fellow Sheffield acts Arctic Monkeys or Long Blondes, but rather names from across the Atlantic such as Sonic Youth, but with an English twist. Opening track Bottom Lip is like hitching a ride with The Strokes after they've necked a truckload of psychotropic drugs, careering along majestically before taking several odd little melodic detours - thrilling and disturbing in equal measures.
The oddly titled Chrunt shares a similarly powerful guitar riff, powered along by an impressive rhythm section, but it's possibly Long In The Tooth which is the highlight of the EP - downtempo, world weary and strangely affecting, with a plaintive cry of "outside, everything is outside".
Fun Anxiety is an appropriately named track to end on, sounding like the most enjoyable panic attack you could hope to have - starting off droningly hypnotic, before taking a left-turn into psychedelic wig-out territory. An excellent debut EP, and a fine addition to Sheffield's already impressive roll-call of talent.
John Murphy
Organ Magazine
http://www.organart.demon.co.uk/neworgan256.htm
SINGLE OF THE WEEK -
KILL THE CAPTAINS – one of those bands who appear to be strolling and skipping along all nice calm and collected and then with no warning or anything fall up some stairs that you’d have sworn weren’t there a moment or go (or at least didn’t see coming yourself). More wrong pop then, that and swallowed words and scrambled truth and mistaken identity god complexes and faces your saw on the news. All double jointed and clever pop and Les Savy Slint Peru Ubu from Sheffield – good good good and every bed unmade
Subba-Cultcha
http://subba-cultcha.com/singles.php?id=20
Gorgeous chord changes, chunky basslines, and chugging guitars in heaven only knows what time signature. Absolutely scrumptious.
Jukebox
http://jukebocx.com/2008/kill-the-captains-kill-the-captains-ep/
The final track is Fun Anxiety, nearly seven minutes of frantic thrashing, growling and screaming. Kicking off with a thrumming and catchy bassline, building layer upon layer into a wall of sound, the effect is like listening to the house band at the asylum. It’s very inventive and engaging, and grows on you after repeat listens – most definitely not boring or middle of the road. As catchy as the previous three songs are, Fun Anxiety is my pick of the EP.
Kill the Captains are from Sheffield and one might assume that the aforementioned city was full of responsible, soul searching musicians who would give us spiritually uplifting songs. Fortunately for us, there must be something in the water down there as Kill the Captains seem to be afflicted with a peculiarly appealing kind of madness.
The Bluesbunny
http://www.bluesbunny.com/tabid/122/xmmid/474/xmid/886/xmview/2/default.aspx
They are a bit playful, this band. "Bottom Lip" leaps right out at you with its throwback to the sixties vocal posturing and that oh so jagged yet at the same time polished guitar playing. "Chrunt" is likewise jaunty with pointed "… I recognise his face, I've seem him in the news" lyrics but balanced this time with a bit of twisted musical discord. God know why there is an evil thrash metal break in the middle but there is and it works. There is so much energy here that you could power a small town with this one. "Long in the Tooth" seems altogether more laconic in its delivery but again there is no shortage of hard working guitars to keep things pumping. Oh, and just to round things off, another good one as post punk influences get mixed up with yet more deranged guitars and even some psychedelic influences to make "Fun Anxiety". Therapy required.
It might well have been the drink - and it usually is - but there is an intelligence and elegance present that reminded the Bluesbunny of such exalted forebearers like The Kinks. Very British, imaginative yet a bit left of centre but a whole lot good. Kill the Captains are truly worthy of your attention
