Customer Reviews

You've Seen Us...You Must Have Seen Us

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Norwich, England-based KaitO evokes nostalgia for theate '70s heyday when British art schoolers concocted catchy tunes only to obscure them with layers of sludge. Remove the breakbeats from the brief "So-So" at the album's halfway point, and it's easy to imagine that the past 215 years never happened. Nikki Colk's girlish voice rarely strays from innocent, singsong melodies, but it's scuffed up with distortion and grafted onto the mad-scientist mayhem of guitarist Dave Lake. Amidst this dissonance, however, KaitO never loses a sense of rhythm or rock structure, setting them a pace ahead of the noise-for noise's-sake crowd. The result recalls a more saccharine take on the heady days when critics debated whether early Pavement records aped Swell Maps or the Fall. Name-checks easily roll off the tongue (the Jesus and Mary Chain springs to mind, and the bouncy guitar/bass chatter of "Catnap" is pure Kleenex), but the quartet brings fresh energy to an under-represented genre. "You've Seen Us.." is heavily peppered with KaitO's early singles, which stick out as highlights. Fifty minutes of gleeful noisemongering can be a bit much for one sitting--especially since Colk's vocals fail to stray from a few basic patterns--but it's still a hell of a good time.

CMJ Monthly September 2001
-Glen Sarvady

Wow. This album blew me away. It's tight and fun. KaitO truly knows how to kick it. I think what impressed me the most about it is how layered & complex it sounds, but with minimal instruments. The only thing I regret is that it's taken me 4 years to discover this band! I can see where the vocals may throw off a potential fan; though I feel they integrate flawlessly into the band's sound, the monotonous drone may throw people off. I like her voice and love the tracks where they seem to manipulate it ("Rockstuff").

There's a sing-song quality to these tracks that kept me listening and moving. I imagine these guys would absolutely kick live.

KaitO perfectly embodies what I look for in an indie band: raw, creative energy, an edgy sound that verges on offensive if you don't listen close enough, and consistently good songs overall. Oh yeah, and danceability is a tremendous bonus!

KaitO's got it all.

The challenge that faces a four-piece rock band in 2001 isn't to do something new--it's to do something right. KaitO, a beat combo from Norwich, England, is on the right track. For a start, drummer Dieta Quantrill and bassist Gemma Cullingford play with energy to spare; it spills out of their songs every which way, like water from a school bus that just careened through the car wash with the windows down. Singer Nikki Colk belts out nuggets of post-teen anxiety in an unaffected-yet-nimble voice that stands up well to the distortion-box treatment it receives on several songs. Colk and Dave Lake make a great guitar team, one hacking out jagged riffs like Andy Gill did early on with Gang of Four, the other running roughshod over the songs like David Mitchell used to in the 3Ds. Their songs also have a bit of the 3Ds' sing-song construction, but they're fitted with football-chant choruses full of lustily sung wordless yelps. Evidently, KaitO remembers what too many band forget: to have fun playing what they play.

Magnet #51 Sept/Oct 2001
-Bill Meyer