“AMERICAN GURL” by Kilo Kish
9.1
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9.1 •
On her thrilling sophomore album, Kilo Kish finds the sweet spot between arcade-inspired electropop and witty critiques of American consumerism.
Kilo Kish has been honing her craft since the early ‘10s, pushing out a series of EPs and her eventual debut album, Reflections in Real Time, in 2016. Kish has always had a flare for trying new sounds, finding a home in a blend between alternative R&B sounds and the eclectic evocations of modern electropop in her most recent project, her Redux EP. And while the 32-year-old is certainly no stranger to indulging in such sounds to further her craft, she makes a full-blown splash into the field of blaring synth-tinged electronics and arcade-made ‘80s influences across her sophomore record, AMERICAN GURL.
The album opens with the title track, a club-ready, suffocating, and electric cut with heavier bass elements and frenetic lyricism regarding Kish’s own ongoing identity crises and her sense of disorientation in a world where she’s incessantly boxed into categories. She likens herself to the infamous doll of the same name, implying that, like an American Girl, she is being packaged up, bought, and sold, expressing feelings of being consumed like a commodity. She finds herself stuck in an inescapable system where she must climb to the top, but in ultimately admitting that she has no clue what she’s doing, she thus frees herself from the climb overall. The following track, “DEATH FANTASY,” acts as the track’s B-side with vocal lines by feature Miguel—drawing on a darker and foreboding alternative sound with more on-the-nose sentiments, whether those be claiming the ‘death’ of her societal categorizations or the choral chants of her mental freedom from the ‘system.’
“DISTRACTIONS III: SPOILED ROTTEN” is a much more concise synthpop track, where Kish makes a bold take on insatiable greed in likening it to an addiction. In doing so, she wittily pokes at those atop the ladder, ‘spoiled rotten’ by their own greed and continually fueling their lives with it. The song, dark and ominous, finds its groove in a perfectly melodic chorus that would slide right onto an ‘80s pop radio. “NO APOLOGY!” follows with a more vibrant and upbeat take on electropop, hitting its stride with one of the best hooks on the record, all while the singer releases her inhibitions and frees herself from the expectations upon her shoulders. Kish disconnects herself from the systems holding her in place, refusing to look back as she soars into the transcendental key change on the final chorus. This sweet spot in the record closes with “BLOODY FUTURE,” an electronic, arcade-prepped track with pop-structured rap verses and further clear ‘80s synthpop influence, lamenting how, in the pursuit to advance, humanity has exacted not only a toll on the planet, but the species itself. Kish reminds us of how our obsession with bigger and better has only brought suffering upon the life we claim to cherish, as well as the very people whose backs and hands society is built upon and by—in short, the future is bloody.
“CHOICE COWBOY” marks a sharp turn sonically, incorporating a series of frenzied drums with contrasting string instrumentation, accompanied by feature Jean Dawson’s haunting, distorted backing lamentations about escapism and exhaustion. Kish soars on the verses, reinforcing her necessity to escape the rat race and break free of the traps surrounding her. Kish’s winning streak continues with the lyrically focused “ATTENTION POLITICIAN,” a track that dichotomously criticizes American elites with tongue-in-cheek phrases while unpacking Kish’s own people-pleasing tendencies and a desire for external validation. In asking whether politicians care for her, she simultaneously longs to be cared about by everyone else—while fronting a facade of nonchalance, she recognizes that she’s been taught to care deeply about others’ opinions of her. This is abruptly followed by loud, synthesized blares of electronic-industrial-hip-hop in “NEW TRICKS: ART, AESTHETICS, AND MONEY,” where Kish crafts a suffocating, concise commentary on public figure curation and artistic inauthenticity for the sake of profit. It’s here where she brings home the message of the title track and, to an extent, the record of a whole: people, specifically artists, feel pressure to deliver themselves like pre-packaged, perfectly-manufactured dolls to generate revenue.
The record finds its final leg in the final three full tracks, hold for the interlude: “ON THE OUTSIDE” draws on loud, expansive pop sounds with fast-paced drums and synthesizer elements to portray a more lyrically weak concept of disconnectedness, while “SUPER KO LOVE” finds a melodic chorus and less tactful writing, though is successful in its attempt at a cinema-ready, arcade-heavy sonic pool of synthpop and Kish’s ultimate call to action. AMERICAN GURL finds its closer in “INTELLIGENT DESIGN,” a dark-sided, thrilling, and futuristic electropop song with some of Kish’s most potent ideas yet. Alongside Jesse Boykins III, she surrenders to whatever higher power may exist and recognizes that there are many things to life she’ll never understand. She accepts her status as a symbol of intelligent design, and finds peace in the fact that she doesn’t need to know or understand her existence to enjoy it.
Kilo Kish, with her second full-length album, cements herself as a thorough, witty songwriter and a growing name in the electropop sphere. With innovative production choices that draw on classic sounds from the ‘80s and ‘90s, blending them with the electronic sonics of arcade machines and conceptually theming the album as a video game, AMERICAN GURL is anything but boring. Kish draws her pen through a series of social issues and pertinent topics as humanity journeys further into the future of advancement, begging questions about herself and the world around her as capitalism and consumerism loom over American heads. Ultimately, wherever the future may go, at least we have Kish’s music to narrate it.