Album Review: Kind, Mental Nudge
What a difference a few years can make. It’s been five since Boston’s Kind released their debut album, Rocket Science (review here), through Ripple Music, and the intervening time has seen a few changes of circumstance that put the band in new light. Vocalist Craig Riggs, heretofore best known as the vocalist of Roadsaw, not only put out a record with that band but also joined L.A.’s Sasquatch on drums. Guitarist Darryl Shepard, whose pedigree of Beantown-based groups might be unmatched — Milligram, Blackwolfgoat, Hackman, countless others — has spent the last few years exploring grunge/heavy-punk influences with the duo Test Meat. And in the rhythm section, what was formerly thought of as bassist Tom Corino‘s main project, Rozamov, haven’t played a show since 2018, despite putting out an awaited debut of their own, while drummer Matt Couto parted ways with Elder in 2019.
The result of all this as it relates to Kind‘s second full-length, Mental Nudge, is a palpable sense of focus. If the songs on Rocket Science were the output born of the four-piece’s initial coming together and learning how to work from a group, then this follow-up is accordingly a moment whereby they take what was established last time around and blast it forward in terms of progression. Notably, that can be heard in terms of the songcraft, as right from the outset with “Broken Tweaker,” Mental Nudge does not shy away from laying down righteous hooks, where the previous collection perhaps pushed back to some minor degree against that impulse to highlight more of a psychedelic expanse. Rest assured, with synth added from Couto and Riggs both, a cut like “It’s Your Head” offers both, and that’s indicative of the modus of the record as a whole, though the tracklisting veers between longer songs (six to eight minutes) and shorter ones (under five) so as much as Kind are dedicated to setting up a full-album flow and letting each song make an impression of its own as a part of that, there’s a willingness to play around a bit and bounce the listener back and forth along the way.
It works well. “Fast Number Two” is a direct sequel to the accordingly titled “Fast Number One” from the first LP, and is emblematic of how the three shorter inclusions on Mental Nudge — itself, “Helms” and the penultimate title-track — manage to balance structural and atmospheric impulses. The sense of space — Alec Rodriguez recorded at Mad Oak Studio; another crucial return — is what unites the material throughout, and in following “Broken Tweaker” laying down the gauntlet in the opening line of the record, “Fuck yeah, I’m willing,” “Fast Number Two” brings a charge without stumbling over its own sprawl. No one in the band is inexperienced when it comes to writing songs, of course, but particular credit has to go to Couto, who handles every turn with grace and a masterful swing, and Corino, whose bass tone brings low-end punch not only to “Fast Number Two” but to the subsequent chug of “Bad Friend” and the closing plod of “Trigger Happy” in highlight fashion. Their work together not only brings impact, groove and weight to the riffs, but broadens and enhances the reach of the band overall.
Along with Riggs‘ layered vocals finding layered and languid apexes in “Bad Friend” and “Helms,” repeating lines in the latter — which is also the centerpiece — as a preface to the hypnosis cast in the finale, and the wash of riffs and leads from Shepard, who spaces out in the midsection of “Bad Friend,” shreds in “It’s Your Head” and pulls out Cantrell-style soul for “Mental Nudge,” Kind becomes bolstered by the quality of each performance without losing sight of the mission in terms either of individual pieces or the album they comprise. Being more than the sum of their parts might be cliché — actually there’s no “might” about it — but that doesn’t make it any less true. Whatever a given song might hold in terms of tempo or melody, the atmosphere of Mental Nudge is immersive and welcomes the listener in plenty-of-room-for-everybody fashion. “It’s Your Head,” “Mental Nudge” and “Trigger Happy” make up a purposeful side B, and while it begins at a charge, the band’s intention to tip the balance toward breadth comes across clearly in both the songs themselves and in the change in structure — i.e., where each longer piece has a corresponding shorter one on side A’s four tracks, “Trigger Happy” (8:29) has the last word on side B.
It’s worth noting that Mental Nudge‘s seven-track/44-minute run is about five minutes shorter than Rocket Science, which also had eight songs, so that might very well be the difference here, but one way or the other, it allows Kind to set the listener adrift in the closing minutes of the album, as “Trigger Happy” picks up from the guitar-led thickened scorch that is “Mental Nudge” and unfurls itself with a surprising edge of psychedelic doom and teases a final surge as it passes the five-minute mark but ultimately cuts back following a quick solo and sets its course toward an eventual dissolution, rolling out on crashes and melodic whispers that in their residual fade-out tones manage to cast an empty version of the space they’ve created. When it’s over, one might feel as though taking in a cliffside view. Kind, then, have pushed as far outward as they’ll go on Mental Nudge, and left their audience in that place. The effect is resonant and lasting.
What Rocket Science put forth, Mental Nudge codifies into genuine sonic persona. Kind are not just a band with members who are/were in other groups — they’ve created this approach of their own and proceeded to work in their own sphere. Obviously there are shades of past work, since it’s the same people, but Kind build something new out of that both because of the combination of players and the individualized intent from which they’re functioning. One hopes it’s not another half-decade before a third Kind record surfaces, but if it is and it represents the sort of accomplished step forward from the standard Mental Nudge sets, it will have been worth the wait.
Kind, Mental Nudge (2020)
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