The Kola Koka Death Squad
The Kola Koka Death Squad
Wife Records
Four out of five stars
The Kola Koka Death Squad is a very accurately named band. The union of two likeminded, frayed-end blues-rock experimentalists, Mike Brewer on vocals and guitar and Colin Frazier on drums and percussion, Kola Koka is all dark, pensive riffs frenetically complemented by the wandering thump of roving drum beats.
It's mortal music, to say the least, and the band's ominous name accurately represents its shadowy, evocative tone. The lyrical content also accurately represents the tone: Brewer sings, "She don't care about the way she looks, she's having fun/ She's no fashion conscious girl, but she gets it done/ Look into her eyes and you'll realize, she's just having fun/ ...Can't you see that I'm out of tune with this world?" This charcoal-gray sense of searching can be found elsewhere on the album, too-there's a desperation to the Kola Koka sound, a detached otherworldliness, a feeling of longing to locate oneself in a totally foreign, temporal environment.
It might be that the duo's musical roots lie in a time largely forgotten by modern music-a time of heavy blues-riffing and temperamental strumming. Or it might be that Brewer and Frazier are just a pair of displaced souls, but the fact remains, Kola Koka does not seem to be a product of our contemporary world.
While the Midwestern duo draws easy comparisons to another Ohio-based two-piece-the more straightforward Black Keys-time and again on their ragged-and-ready debut, Brewer and Frazier still manage to break new ground. By pushing the boundaries of tangled blues-rock, Kola Koka creates a unique type of innovation in form.
This is a solid example of forward thinking within a classic genre, and though it will undoubtedly fly well under the radar of popular taste, it's an album not to be missed.
egreen@chronicle.utah.edu
