Kíla
Luna Park
Kíla Records KRCD 009; 65 minutes; 2003
Back in the
1970s there were plenty of “progressive” rock bands happy to ditch a decent
tune in favour of an extended jam or a twenty-minute drum solo. Sadly, such
afflictions have also infected Kíla, a seven-piece Irish band supposedly at the
cutting edge of World Music whose collective dictionary has excised the word
“subtlety”. 
Suspicions
mounted on first viewing the track listing, an exercise that discovered no fewer
than three tracks of more than nine minutes’ duration. Repeated listening to
the entire album provided the further information that the tunes which comprise
those three tracks are about as memorable as a fish supper in Ramsgate (and far
less pleasurable).
Kíla’s first
problem is that their vehicle seems to have only two gears – overdrive and even
more overdrive. The second is that their singer, founder and “main man”, Ronan
Ó Snodaigh, has a voice which makes watching paint drying on a wall a more fulfilling
alternative. Their third problem is that, six albums on, they seem to have
exhausted their creative juices in favour of an approach that involves
battering the hell out of every available instrument in the studio (and then
nipping down to the local music shop and buying a few more).
Luna Park is supposed to be the album which
“breaks” Kíla internationally. On this evidence, the only thing likely to break
(apart from numerous assorted battered instruments) is the band itself.
This is
review by Geoff Wallis was originally written for Songlines magazine – www.songlines.co.uk.
For more
information about Kíla visit www.kilarecords.com.