Now nine albums deep into his solo career, David Kilgour still keeps one foot in The Clean, yet that trio is sporadic and seemingly unpredictable in terms of output and activity - to the extent that his body of work with band The Heavy Eights is his primary focus and creative outlet. End Times Undone beautifully captures the same mystical lazy strum and innate homespun catchiness of Kilgour’s singing that has characterised all of his work to date.
The ingredients of Kilgour’s style were formed early; that Byrdsian jangle, Velvet Underground drone, Dylan-like lyrical dance and wrestle and the motorik pulse of krautrock. All are present in varying degrees here and the combination is both hypnotic gently energising. On opener ‘Like Rain’ Kilgour lets the blood flow with the hi-hat pushing the song along beneath lightly psychedelic, swirling guitars. Those guitars get choppier and grittier on ‘Lose Myself In Sound’ showing that he isn’t afraid to pull up the shades and let sunshine pour in, such is the song’s warm and elated glow. ‘Crow’ presents darker, sharper musical corners like Neil Young & Crazy Horse locked in a groove, criminally cut short after two and a half minutes. Surprisingly, End Times Undone clocks in at under 40 minutes though each song sounds like an open-ended, free-wheelin’ piece of music. That’s the skill of Kilgour who has the ability to create such rich and immersive three-minute songs out of a traditional guitars/drums/vocals setup.
There is plenty to like here on first listen but the more the songs are played the greater their rewards as they twist and turn, dive and soar with a poetic and unpretentious grace. Kilgour has never put a foot wrong and in terms of consistency of quality there are few in the same league on the New Zealand musical landscape or for that matter internationally.
You can stream the full album over here
