Vaka - Kappa Delta Phi
Recording quality can really make or break a record.
There's a part of me that hates myself for saying that. If 16 year old me heard 29 year old me saying that 16 year old me would probably throw himself off of a tall building to prevent 29-year old me from ever existing. I can't help it, though. As I've gotten older, I've paid more attention to the way things sound.
That doesn't mean everything has to sound "good," per se. It just has to sound right. It has to sound cool. I have records that probably cost truckloads of money to record that don't do anything for me and records that were 8-tracked in someone's basement that sound phenomenal because the recording fits what the band is doing.
Vaka's album "Kappa Delta Phi" sounds fucking fantastic.
Now before I elaborate on that, let me point out two things:
1) The cover art of this album totally reminds me of the cover of "Free To Be, You and Me."
Is it just me on this one?
2) The album name is probably a frat somewhere.
Okay, back to the record. I'm sure a lot of people would call this "post-metal" and say it kind of sounds like Neurosis with more piano, which isn't unfair, but is kind of like saying that a tank is a "vehicle" that looks kind of like a car with treads and a gun. While technically accurate, it's painting with a very broad brush and missing a shit load of the important details.
This album has one of the most dense, organic sounds I think I've ever heard. Vaka never gets particularly heavy on this record, save a few choice spots. Mostly the record is just dense, with a lot of pounding drums and roomy piano. I should also point out that the piano sounds like an actual piano as opposed to someone with a Crappio keyboard set on "001," so either someone worked real hard to get a nice keyboard sound or someone actually put a microphone up to a piano, an occurrence so rare in music like this that it might as well be a picture of bigfoot.
Vaka puts together these nice, droning songs with a lot of layers and texture all resting uneasily on top of each other in a beautiful way. It's all kind of like a kaleidoscope, with all sorts of colors that don't seems like they make sense together but when you turn it right, it all becomes perfectly clear. Take the vocals- it's pretty standard pirate singing like you would find on the albums of a lot of bands like this. Nothing special, and, in fact, they seem kind of out of place given the generally less sludgy vibe of a lot of the record, but then right in the middle of the second to last song, they break out into this ridiculously crushing part and the vocals come roaring in and it's as if this one part justified their seeming out-of-place-ness on the entire rest of the record. I had a lightbulb over the head moment and thought "holy fuck, the vocals do make sense, I just hadn't realized it yet.
And the sound quality. Beautiful. I absolutely love the way this record sounds. I can't put my finger on it, but it just has this incredibly lush, warm, organic sound to me. When I listen to it in headphones I feel like it's being played inside my head. It's one of those records whose sound doesn't conjure up a band playing in a studio, but a band playing in a big, creepy, empty, dark room.
Overall, I'd say this is one of the best records I've heard of this genre in a long time. Real cool sound, real original hooks, everything coming together well. Do yourself a favor and check this album out.
Update: TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!
