Drunkaleidoscope – Sukilove (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Like pretty much all of the music that emanates from the Jezus Factory roster, Sukilove are a band that defy easy labeling. You might try putting them into the pop pigeon hole but would then have to qualify it by saying that they are pop in the same way that Talking Heads were pop, warped, experimental and a million miles away from the usual 3 minute chart botherers that seem to rule the roost today. You could talk about the dance infused backbeats but then have to point out that if you try to dance to the likes of Lost you will just look like you are on Ketamin or an extra from a zombie movie. You might also mention the experimental nature of their sounds, flitting between styles and ideas not just between songs but within them, not in an overblown proggy sort of way but more in a wholesome Wilco sort of way.

The album wanders around in a drowsy, stoned, dream pop daze, sometimes hypnotic and repetitive and at other times beautifully and willfully unfocused. Thankfully I come from the Everett True school of not describing the music except in the vaguest terms and this album plays into my hands as each track would be an essay in it’s own right, the multi-layering of sound textures, the range of ideas that form it’s skewed template, the light and shade that infuses every moment of every song and the string of generic references that it picks up, remoulds and discards, seemingly at a whim. Like most good music if you want it described to you….listen to the damn record, that is what it is there for. All I will say is that you won’t have heard anything quite this simultaneously charming and challenging, chilled yet inspired for a long time, if you have you can bet that it was also from a Jezus Factory related band.