Kickball.

Kickball are the very sweetest sort of favorite band, in no small part because I found them in the most organic of all possible ways- a good friend (Alex!) dragged me to their show, and so I stood happily on the second floor of an all ages venues, where the stage was “that side of the room” and the opening band was an acoustic cute-pop trio whose name I can’t remember. I remember they sang about breakups and hade homemade instruments or maybe kids instruments, and lots of confused-little-kid-meets-heartbroken-swearing-adult type lyrics. Kickball, too, were not what I was expecting. “Come to the show,” I was told. “They’re really sweet and kinda quiet and it’s like six bucks.” They were louder than I expected, crunchier than I was promised, and really good in retrospect but I’d been promised a pretty, low-key set and it wasn’t what I got. Singer Jacob Wilson’s mid-high pitched indie-pop intonation is more of a wail in a live setting, and a lot of the negative space in their songs gets filled up. Good, but different.

Kickball are a favorite for the same reason the Metal Hearts or Arab Strap are a favorite of mine. Not because they’re so innovative or groundbreaking, but simply because they know the secret to making a good mope-a-long song: Don’t sing it to me, sing it to yourself. Emo bands, fussy and self-obsessed Devendra Banharts, American Analog Set overthinkers, I get this sense that they’re singing for people to hear them, as many people as possible, and that puts me off. Not that bands shouldn’t want to be heard, or that Devendra or AmAnSet are bad (they’re not,) but personal confessional songs are supposed to be just that – personal, confessional, sung to the subject and not to the audience. When I listen to Kickball I get that sense – not that they’re unaware of their audience, but just like I said, they’re not writing to me.

That’s not to say that all their songs are quiet or mopey or confessional in that way. Some are poppy, upbeat, riffy songs that they describe as “songs that sound like the sort of tunes a slow moving bear might hum, while collecting some breakfast berries, or the sort of sounds the wind might make as it blows the slow bear’s fur back against its song” and rightfully so. It’s more, maybe, that the authenticity of their headache-and-heartache songs is present in all their records; they regret as sincerely as they party.

A little regret: Tides Or Swells
A little party: Coyote

Buy Kickball Records Here: Houseopolis Records

—

ps – A quick explanation for those mystified by my presence: Normally I’m HERE. During the day I’m HERE.