The Kut – ‘Make Up’ [Review]
Wearing your influences on your sleeve can be a risky business. It’s a precarious tightrope walk between sound-alike copycat crap (let’s be honest – if you sound exactly like a famous band with a big discography, all you’re going to do is make your listeners head toward that band and forget you in the process), and diluted and directionless wishy-washiness. Few bands manage to keep their balance.
The Kut, however, do.
The secret to doing it right is to toss those ‘Play Like X Band’ books out the window, tear yourself away from guitar tabs and boring backing tracks, use theory and “stylistic awareness” to understand what you’ve already done, not decide what to do next, and (most of all) follow Bill Hicks’ advice:
Although some of that advice should be taken with a pinch of salt, the core idea is bang on – and when you hear a band play from their hearts, you know it. Your mind doesn’t need to decide; your body and your gut know ahead of time. And that is why The Kut are so damn awesome.
As much as I love the filthy and scuzzy underside of nineties’ music, and it’s great to hear so many emerging bands looking to it for inspiration, it’s worth nothing unless it feels (i.e. is) real. The opening moments of No Trace completely bowled me over, the following four tracks kept me consistently floored, and none of that would be possible without heartfelt passion; the skills needed to project that passion through studio microphones, digital music formats, and speaker cones; and the confidence required to keep it all consistent.
Bands like The Kut are all too rare – and the excitement of discovering a new one is the main reason TMMP exists. When this EP finished, I felt like applauding – but decided against it, since I was queuing at the Post Office at the time. Make Up is an EP you need to hear; it’s as simple as that.
Thanks to Lauren at Inception Press for the heads-up about this release.
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