2 out of 5

Label: Frenchkiss

Produced by: Greg Norman

Guys: pick a genre.  Some groups are capable of hopping between styles mid-track, or over the course of the album.  But for every Tub Ring, there’s a handful of groups where it’s just a shtick – that screamo moment in the middle of your folk scuffle just makes me want to kick you in the shins.  Detachment Kit aren’t pulling such flagrant tricks, thankfully, but they seem stuck for finding their own identity as a band, as opposed to several people playing together who apparently like emo… and the Seattle scene…  and some hardcore bands… and so, over the course of ‘Of This Blood,’ dabbling in each style to see what fits.  Unfortunately, without a core identity to build on, though the execution of these tracks is technically fine, there’s not enough soul to make them distinctive, resulting in a lotta’ ‘sounds like…’  ‘Skyscrapers’ sounds like early Built To Spill, but without Doug Martsch’s classic influences or vocal effusiveness.  ‘Chronology’ might be early Modest Mouse, but without Isaac Brock’s cutting lyrics or Phil Ek’s sharp production.  And ‘Ted the Electric’ could pass for some amped up Dischord stuff, the majority of which is already trying to pass as Fugazi.  Throughout, Ian delivers some roundabout lyrics that might build better connections if the album had a bit more of a synchronized feel (since the styles jump about, you can’t really settle into the feeling that he’s doing anything but singing cover songs), and producer Norman frequently undercuts the energy of the buzzsaw guitars with pretty tinkling things.  The tracks where the group cuts the shit and just rocks out at least sound the best, though we have to fall back on a lot of vocal distortion to get the yelly edge required.

So at a cursory listen, ‘Of This Blood’ has some good stuff going for it.  But when you proceed past that cursory listen, all you get is a nagging feeling that you’d rather be listening to the groups who made the original versions of these songs, and made them with more heart.