Kudu
Issue #26
Death of the Party (Nublu)
By Bill Copeland
Published: December 1st, 2005 | 12:40pm
A smorgasbord of many different types of dance music, there are hints of disco throughout Death of the Party. Kudu, though, are more sophisticated than disco, offering funk, jazzy melodies, occasional flashes of classic rock, touches of drum machine, new wave beats, and a whole lot more. Jazz singer Sylvia Gordon and drummer Deantoni “D” Parks, who comprise Kudu, are definitely musical sorcerers who can conjure up mounds of danceable beats and swaying melodies.
Most of Death’s 12 tracks will go over well on any dance club floor on any night. Yet, as a whole, Death of the Party mixes so many different genres of music to dance to that it becomes a murky soup of hugely impressive but not quite related music; danceable is the only attribute each track has in common. “Love Me in Your Language” is irresistibly quirky and it’s backed up by a seductive backbeat. “Playing House” makes use of a simple and catchy drum track. “King Kong” has a swirling synth melody wrapped around a quasi afro-Caribbean beat. There is nothing bad about these, but they’re just worlds apart in tone, timbre, and tempo, and that makes the salad bar a little too expansive. “Leave Me Alone” bursts with electro, propulsive drumming, and a raw emotive vocal from Gordon with the result sounding like soulful funk. “Neon Graveyard” pulls the duo into an eerie gothic melody, a whole different musical world.
In the end, Death of the Party is enjoyable, but a little too inconsistent.
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