(The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope: From Where You Were to How You Got There
(Hackshop Records)

Hard to believe, but this is Kaleidoscope’s first full-length release ever, since convening in, um, the mid-’90s. (Prior to that was a series of homemade tapes and a 2004 EP released via the Foxyboy label.) The only survivor of those halcyon days is the ostensibly iron-willed frontman/guitarist, Damien C. Taylor, who must’ve been awfully determined to see this project through.

So, was From Where You Were worth the wait? Well, yes and no. There’s a lot of promise, but the toil is wasted on building to a musical epiphany the album never quite satisfactorily reaches. “Th’ Strangebirds” loiters longer than necessary, Taylor strumming nowhere on his instrument while his backing unit settles into a comfortable fit. “Suite-T” suffers the same fate—how can guitars sound like they’re relaxing on a couch, reading the paper? Taylor’s vocals mope dreamily somewhere between bored and stoned, echoing in shushed oblivion. In an accidental way, the band is very much like a kaleidoscope: fun to surrender to for a few minutes, cooing at the pretty, rotating colors, but eventually you do stuff it in a bottom drawer with the Silly Putty, where it’s eventually covered under years of math papers and life. (www.thesoundsofkaleidoscope.com, www.hackshoprecords.com)

5 Blips out of 10 By Cory Frye