Hey, look who’s back? Mr. “I’m gonna post on this blog every day, seriously”. Well, here I am. I’m sorry I’m late, but my alarm didn’t go off. For months.
To quote Michael Iaconelli, “Never underestimate the power of the hook.” Showtime at the Apollo knows it, Tony Todd knows it, and twee folksters Kiki & Peepee (Kendra Senrick and Stephen Hollinger respectively) sure as hell know it, as evidenced by their addictively catchy debut album “The Sun Floods The World With It’s Vomit”.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have reservations about the twee. I’m weary of the twee. Suspicious of the twee. One side of it is just that I’m a miserable bastard, out to kill everyone’s good time. The other part is that I really value honesty in music, and the fact is that twee and sincereity don’t often go together. It seems like there’s always some kind of irony attached, and it can be hard to tell just how firmly the tongue is planted in the cheek. Kiki and Peepee are a notable exception. Kendra Senrick may have a voice that’s as adorable as kittens re-enacting the Civil War, but her songs often come from a real place of pain. In the incredible “Yellow & Backwards”, Kendra uses jaundice as a metaphor for feeling lost, lonely, and different with a refrain of “What stood on this spot?/Who helped me here? I can’t remember/I was born in November/I came out yellow and backwards/I am still yellow and backwards/I will always be yellow and backwards”.
But if there’s one thing that matches Kiki & Peepee’s introspective lyrics, it’s their energy. With a majority of the songs clocking in at under 2 minutes, The Sun Floods The World With It’s Vomit is a fast paced and frantic pop romp. Part of what makes the energy so strong are the hooks (if songs like “My Day Off” and “Gummy Worm Heart” don’t get stuck in your head, I’d see a doctor immediately) but a lot of credit has to be given to the skilled drumming of Stephen Hollinger. His fast and swinging percussive style keeps each song fresh, fun and completely awesome to dance to.
This energy is best experienced in the form of their explosive live shows. Mere words can’t do their live performances justice. Seeing Kiki and Peepee live is something akin to spending an evening with the cast of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’. There’s going to be drinking, screaming, singing, and laughing at the things in life that hurt us the most, all at an intensity that can be overwhelming to the unprepared. While “The Sun Floods The World With It’s Vomit” can’t quite hit with the same power, it makes up for it with it’s more experimental sound collages and spoken word tracks like “Charlie” and “Knee-Deep-Deco”. These are always interesting but, more importantly, they do a good job tempering the rest of the album’s fast-paced pop.
Kiki and Peepee’s “The Sun Floods The World With It’s Vomit” isn’t available online, but if you contact them, I’m sure they could mail you a copy for about 7 bucks or so. And for such a great collection of pop music from such an amazing band, it’s well worth it.
Mp3’s:
Kiki & Peepee - Yellow and Backwards
Kiki and Peepee - Becky’s a Prize
Check out Kiki and Peepee on Myspace
