Just for a brief moment as “Is It Time” leads us into Kinsale’s debut ep, Nights and Weekends, I catch a faint echo of Lloyd Cole, perhaps something in Raymond Gurley’s voice, but enough to let me know that I’m on safe ground. They are undoubtedly too young to be consciously drawing on ’80s pop; pop from an ocean away, but anyone mining similar territory, mindfully or otherwise, is a band that I am going to have time for. (Also, check him out, you’ll thank me later.)
Nights and Weekends is an album with a sound that is perfectly placed in that magic triangle of sonics. In this place, pop-awareness, indie cool, and rock energies combine in the perfect ratio, and also, for every forward-thinking sonic move, there is a nod to something older, more established… classic even.
“Cannot Be Found” does nothing to dispel my visions of the aforementioned Scottish pop prince, but also grooves and moves with an early REM vibe (man, I’m falling for this band…hard) – big choruses, big guitars…but clever too. Rock with awareness? Pop with attitude? Indie with a PhD? All that and more.
“Carolina” is lush and hazy, running on a slight country twang and soaked in drifting pedal steel sonics, and “Spinning Wheels” takes such rich arrangements into even more cosmic realms.
At a time when I’m considering my favourite albums of the year, Nights and Weekends drops as a late contender for the list…or they would be if I ever did anything as mundane and clickbaiting as produce such a list. (Music isn’t a competition or something to be compared and ranked, after all.) But if I did, they would command a decent position on it.
