Review: Kele - Trick
Marc Blanc, Contributor
[Kobalt/Lilac; 2014]
Rating: 5.5/10
Key Tracks: “First Impressions,” “Stay the Night”
Film directors should love Kele Okereke because his music fits safely onto a grid. Since the 2009 hiatus of Bloc Party, Kele has been producing rather simple electronic music for him to sing to, starting with his 2010 debut The Boxer.
Bloc Party’s potential return to the studio, however, has not deterred the frontman from releasing another LP more apt to commercials and generic movie “club” scenes than the libraries of serious electronic and indie listeners.
Trick initially manipulates genre conventions to its advantage, the vintage “uhn-tiss” beat and soul/R&B chorus on “First Impressions” evoking the dancefloor of the early ‘90s. Even an EP of such songs would be fun nostalgia in the post-dubstep age, but Kele’s normcore approach devolves from interesting to dragging by the third track.
“Doubt” is the true tone-setter, as its copy-paste house rhythm and stock-sounding synth are likely to persuade a listening mind to wander to some car commercial marketed toward bacchanal 20-somethings. Think quick shots of black leather interior and headlights like a menacing face, daring the middle class consumer to drive it to a rave with Trick rumbling the satellite radio.
Like the clubhoppers in SNL’s classic “A Night at the Roxbury” skit, Trick as a record is an almost entirely innocuous figure, accessible by most audiences, if it weren’t for how sweatily lustful it is. Over harmless instrumentals Kele sings about a party culture of promiscuity, hedonism and emptiness.
Sexuality is communicated in an almost uncomfortably effective fashion from the cover, red as Jessica Rabbit’s lips, and the first song, with Kele standing so close to the mic he sounds like he’s trying to kiss the listener’s ear. And that’s one of the album’s few victories.
Inferring the title is tongue-in-cheek based on lines like, “Every day you’re not here is a waste,” on “Silver & Gold,” the record is realized as the work of a sensitive artist searching for meaningful human connection, suspected to be lost somewhere in the mass of hookups.
An intimate bedroom atmosphere is achieved by Kele oppressing his voice to quiet lowness but he fixates on it too much, rendering the already instrumentally disadvantaged songs utterly graspless. When Bloc Party did stand out, it was because of Kele’s delivery--quivering with energy--and his charming English inflection. On Trick he largely suppresses both until the last few tracks, notably the range-testing “My Hotel Room” and Liverpudlian closer “Stay the Night.” Otherwise, Kele’s vocals do little to pick up the slack left by Kele’s production.
As a general rule for individuality, EDM producers try to avoid crafting tunes that sound like Ableton or Fruity Loops samples. Therefore, human ingenuity is maintained in a digital genre. All too often, the 10 songs here flop into a computer’s idea of electro music, something to be damned to an archive for a filmmaker or advertiser to buy as stock sound.
Sincere and often chest-tightening emotion can be found, concentrated in the beginning and the finale, but in order to experience the full weight one must endure half an hour of melancholy boredom. Hopefully Kele returns his band to form with its working fifth studio album, because his solo efforts haven’t even cracked surfaces the way Bloc Party did.
