Cons: No direction, no "glue" to hold it together, just awful...
The Bottom Line: K might have been a decent album had the band been able to figure out some direction to go. As it stands, Kula Shaker's debut is ugly and forgettable.
I don’t deal well with bands that think themselves to be more profound then they actually are. One such ridiculous mess is Kula Shaker. Named after ninth-century Indian mystic and emperor, the band consciously blends a pseudo-spiritual direction with neo-psychedelic Brit-pop. If the whole thing does seem a bit ridiculous that’s because, well, it is.
Kula Shaker is the misguided brainchild of vocalist and guitarist Crispian Mills—the son of child actress Hayley Mills and director Roy Boulting. It was initially visualized as something more straightforward and called the Kays, but after a few years and multiple members departing the band morphed into Kula Shaker in 1995. Rounded out by Alonza Bevan (bass guitar), Jay Darlington (organ, piano), and Paul Winter-Hart (drums), the band recorded two unimpressive albums before parting ways four years later.
Maybe, for just a passing moment, I enjoyed Kula Shaker. The band’s 1996 debut K has some decent moments but as a whole it fails miserably. The singles were, for what it’s worth, enjoyable on the surface. A few other songs also feature what can only be described as infectious hooks. Songs Hey Dude, Tattva, and Grateful When You’re Dead/Jerry Was There are attractive for a moment (albeit a passing one). The swirling percussion and guitar groove of Hey Dude are genuinely fun—an excellent kind of rock/pop I came to know and appreciate from British acts in the 1990’s.
Tattva (and for that matter Govinda and Sleeping Jiva) however represent what is so very wrong about K. With lyrics culled from Sanskrit text, Mills sings with an urgent air of superiority. If this isn’t an attempt to be something, uh, different and somehow more important than other bands speaking about the simple frivolities in life then I don’t know what is. The chants, the clear Eastern arrangement—it’s all a ridiculously contrived mess. Because of songs like these I just can’t take Kula Shaker seriously.
K features a band that is just trying too hard to be something they are not. Music is not, as evidenced by Kula Shaker, that everybody can do well. There’s no glue to hold this album together. There’s a good riff here, a nifty melody there, a chant way over there, and some good ol’ fashioned British swagger in the center of it all. But still nothing special, no spark no juice—no “umph.” Basically, K tastes like a roughshod, self-important hunk of tripe. It’s really not a very pleasant experience on the whole.
But back to those moments I most like. However little I can appreciate the impetus behind Tattva I love the actual melody and arrangement. It’s groovy and rich and fun. Sometimes fun is enough, but the fun on K is tempered by all that damn pseudo-intelligence. K is evenly divided between relatively well thought out pop songs and songs that aren’t offensive ONLY because it is clear that the four members are relatively decent musicians. Nothing here is outstandingly horrible, but at the same time nothing here even comes close to being memorable. The vast majority of these songs just fade away…and by the time K wraps up there’s nothing left worth coming back for.
Special kudos do indeed go to Tattva and Hey Dude. I also like the organ/guitar/rock jam of Grateful When You’re Dead. Deep Purple and Jimi Hendrix seem to influence to the band’s retro sound on this song and a few others. Smart Dogs and 303 are also of particular note. I honestly believe that had Kula Shaker taken a moment to figure out who they were and had they actually picked a direction their debut would have been a lot better.
The worst of the bunch are the bleak and cliché Temple of Everlasting Light, the theatrical and psychedelic piece Magic Theatre, the forgettable pop of Into the Deep, and the languid Start All Over. I really want to like what the band had to offer but if K is of any indication then that was very little. Maybe had the Eastern chants and instruments felt a bit more honest then the songs would have come across better. Though, as the album stands, these moments are dispersed amongst bland Britpop and aged psychedelic rock.
In any case, K is a shameful disappointment. There are worse things out there, but all-in-all I am very unhappy with this album. So unhappy in fact that I refuse to invest any time or money into their equally misguided second attempt Peasants, Pigs, and Astronauts. Long story short—Mills is regarded as a privileged, presumptuous, and arrogant jerk. K is just an outgrowth of that.
Rating: 2/5 stars
Track Listing:
01. Hey Dude
02. Knight on the Town
03. Temple of Everlasting Light
04. Govinda
05. Smart Dogs
06. Magic Theatre
07. Into the Deep
08. Sleeping Jiva
09. Tattva
10. Grateful When You’re Dead/Jerry Was There
11. 303
12. Start All Over
13. Hollow Man, Pts. 1 & 2
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