Demo 2014

I've grown used to disappointment in music. Looking back over the careers of my favorite bands, I've noticed a trend that will come as a big "no shit!" to a lot of you: nearly every single band who has ever been truly great eventually hit a peak, and then descended that peak never to return again to such lofty heights. I think it's probably just a result of truly artistically gifted bands hitting some magical ratio of compositional skill and youthful passion that is really a once-in-a-lifetime bit of magic. It can be overwhelmingly depressing to think about things in such terms, as coming to grips with this reality also means realizing that every single one of your favorite current, active bands have probably only established themselves as such by releasing their best material. It's all downhill from here, folks.

Such was the disappointment I had geared myself up for when first listening to Kuilu's second release, the humbly titled "Demo 2014." I had fallen hopelessly in love with the band's previous EP, a love that came hard and fast but has proven to be lasting. How, then, could the followup hope to match it, let alone surpass it?

I think the band managed to do the best they could in allaying my fears in the context of another relatively brief 20-something minute release. Material in the very same vein, even of the very same quality, would forever be compared to the first EP, a release which for me will always carry with it the emotion of that initial discovery and the "love at first listen" effect. However, Kuilu avoid that pitfall by releasing two songs that are considerably more challenging and less readily accessible than both "Haudalla" and "Virta." Gone are the immediate and affecting melodies, replaced with confused, even somewhat hostile passages that seem to reflect my very preparation for disappointment. That's not to say there's no beauty here - it's just permanently affixed to a facade of anxious uncertainty.

Fluid, expressive basslines meander along under sad, nervous chords that are just as often strummed as tremolo picked. Lead guitar lines amplify the just slightly off-sounding melodies and jittery drum patterns keep the groove locked in while the same strained mid-ranged raspy vocals belt out lamentations above it all. The first track showcases the change in musical approach by letting the bass often handle what could be understood as the "main riff" while the guitars play more hypnotic, static patterns. The band still utilizes a potent knack for dynamics, but this time instead of allowing the music to calm before surging forward again as a tool to maximize the melancholy of the melodies, here the receding and advancing violence are constructed so as to build tension that is in desperate need of releasing, which of course the band obliges. I'm reminded more strongly of Blood Red Fog's more unsettling works here than anything else. Though the influence of that band's music on Kuilu's first EP was palpable, here it takes the limelight and pushes things in a darker direction.

It's almost best to think of this as the second stage in the series of emotions that makes up the complex tides of grief. The first was the most obvious: waves of the pure expression of the sadness of loss that follows it immediately. As a viewer external to the direct trauma of grief, this second wave, which embodies the confusion of anxiety about how you will cope without the person who has died and denial of the reality of the situation, is naturally harder for us to understand and deal with as outsiders. That the tracks here have gone nameless is also fitting, then, as it's difficult to label that which we don't understand. I think the reaction I've had to this music, which so perfectly captures those dazed and bewildered feelings that come on the heels of the more immediate sorrow that follows death, is only natural: I don't love the same way as it's harder for me to connect with, but I think I've come to understand and accept it.

Perhaps anger will come next.