Wise Blood Industries

Found this glowing review on Sonic Reverie: http://sonicreverie.blogspot.com/2009/10/size-of-kansas-four-or-five-loose.html

Size of Kansas is a project born out of somewhat peculiar ambition. The duo of Adam Stafford (vocalist with Y’all is Fantasy Island) and Jon McCall (ex YiFI drummer) decided in 2006 that they could record and release one new album every month. They only managed to make one though; Digital is Dead From the Beginning, of which the limited run of 10 cdr’s not surprisingly sold out. So it was released as a free download at the beginning of this year and now Stafford has returned to the project as a solo venture with a new album later this year as well as this preceding EP to whet the appetite.

As would be expected given such a break there’s a marked difference from the last record. Where as Digital is Dead… was a harsh collage of noise from the opening, 4 or 5 Loose Horses takes a much more subdued approach. The opening track is particularly entrancing in its slow unraveling, like a somewhat sombre lullaby. It isn’t until the title track that it begins to sound like a continuation of previous work; The stuttering metronomic percussion is like a more cooperative version of Poéme Symphonique as it weaves in between the distorted guitar layers. This creates a spaghetti western vibe of tension and as it winds ever more frantically towards a conclusion you get the impression that there must be a climax coming, a massive crushing wall of noise to finish on. It never arrives though, and it’s an oddly satisfying transgression.

There’s something exorbitantly peaceful about the quietly picked guitars at the start of The Health of the World’s Seas, suggesting in fact that they are calm and free from interference. This feeling becomes even more inescapable the more the guitars distort and stretch on like rolling waves. There seems to be no real framework or restrictions of extensions to these songs, sounds float in to the ether and seem to just adapt naturally taking on whatever form they wish. It leaves us with a beguiling work of constant fluctuation, something which is consistently apparent also in the guitar sounds. At some points there’s an undeniable post rock influence that recalls the likes of Mono or even Bark Psychosis. At others it sounds a bit solipsistic and brings to mind bands of the Midwest emo scene such as Mineral or Sunny Day Real Estate. The delayed acoustic guitars on Rope sound like David Thomas Broughton, and it’s this which provides arguably the most enjoyable track here and a nice variation from the discordance of other tracks. It includes the first use of samples on this release, clips of old movie dialogue which perfectly compliments the bleak romanticism of the clawing guitars and even the odd drawled vocals. The previous four tracks had been hinting towards a more melodic approach but something quite so soothingly optimistic still comes as quite a surprise. It works though, and a combination of this type of material with some of the more noisy aspects would probably work well to break up the album.

In all this is a nice stop-gap release which hints at some interesting new influences for the second album, but beginners would be best advised to get Digital is Dead first. Whilst it may be harsher it’s less restrained and inevitably a much more rewarding experience on repeated listens.