KAYO DOT — Blasphemy (review)

Album · 2019 · Non-Metal

3/5 · 2021-11-25
siLLy puPPy

KAYO DOT decidedly abandoned any metal connections on “Coffins On Io” and started melding Gothic rock with it’s unique brand of dark jazz, avant-prog and darkwave. Toby Driver and friends continue this on BLASPHEMY, the ninth studio album. While the previous release “Plastic House On Base Of Sky” was larger than life with 21 extra musicians on board to create a somewhat bloated production, BLASPHEMY on the hand creates a more immediate effect by reducing the lineup to a mere six participants. The result is a more direct progressive rock experience that focuses on creepy atmospheres that match the foggy album cover art with Gothic bleakness.

There are two camps of KAYO DOT fans, one that went gaga over Driver’s unique avant-garde metal style that mixed metal bombast with jazz, chamber prog and avant-garde weirdness and then there are those who love this second phase of non-metal mood maddening Goth. Of course there are those who get into both sides. I’m in the first camp and have never related to this phase of the KAYO DOT universe and unfortunately BLASPHEMY does not change this fact. The album consists of eight tracks of over 45 minutes however there is also a second bonus disc titled PURITY for those who can’t get enough of this style of KAYO DOT. If that’s the case get the Digibook Limited Edition and bliss out!

Admittedly while i literally hated this album upon first listen, it actually has grown on me a bit through forced exposure until i can put myself into the head of the creators who forged it in their fiery pits. The admirable aspects include highly complex time signature changes, abstract and surreal tones and timbres that really do take you to the heart of the matrix for deep contemplation. The whole thing does sound what The Cure might’ve evolved into had they pursued a more progressive rock oriented sound. The down side is that after the first three tracks the album begins to lag a bit and the spell that the album casts begins to wear thin to my ears.

While the production works quite well, i find the vocals to a bit irritating to be honest. Musically all is fine featuring those knotty KAYO DOT workouts but considering the music is so dark and depressive i find the vocals to be a bit one-dimensional and in the end pretty much ruins the overall experience. In fact the vocals sound processed much of the time and there is some sort of tinny tone that reminds me of modern day electro-pop which while not inherently bad for what it is, doesn’t resonate in the context of a dark gloomy album theme to my ears. Whatever the case some have warmed up to this album as the logical next step from this series of non-metal albums.

Given the Gothic rock leanings, BLASPHEMY also has more pop oriented hooks than most KAYO DOT albums would ever dare. As a KAYO DOT fan i’m more accustomed to the jagged surreal soundscapes of “Choirs Of The Eye,” “Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue” and “Blue Lambency Downward,” therefore this one is just too tame for my interest from an artist known to expand the metal world’s horizons into bizarre new colonizations of sound. All in all this isn’t as bad as my first impressions implied but after giving it more time to sink in and renewed contemplation, it still doesn’t exactly light my fire. When it comes down to it, BLASPHEMY just doesn’t deliver what it promises. I can’t enjoy an album that i constantly have to reinterpret it to what i want it to be. While i can overlook that to some degree, in the end this just doesn’t rank high on my KAYO DOT experiences.