Artist: Kino
Label: Inside Out Records
Release: 2005
Rating: 3/5
Lately there are loads of newly born bands, often formed when members of already established acts team up, either for the fun of it or to cast their line farther from the shore and make some serious cash along the way. Well, the best thing is a mix of both. Kino figured that out too, a band made up of four musicians: guitarist John Mitchell (Arena, The Urbane), who also handles lead vocals, keyboardist John Beck (It Bites), bassist Pete Trewavas (Marillion, Transatlantic) and drummer Chris Maitland (ex-Porcupine Tree).
The name Cinema has been used way too many times in the music world (the Cinema project by Chris Squire and Trevor Rabin is probably the best known of the bunch), hence Kino. “Picture” has ten songs, and only the opener Losers Day Parade is properly progressive. It’s where the guys immediately show off all their potential, and you could say it sums up the name of this new incarnation of Kino best. A modern, semitone-smeared guitar riff, as simple as can be, starts revealing its mission. A deeply pulsing bass line with tightly tuned drums forms a contrasting and decisive rhythmic backbone! That and a simple but punchy driving riff give the album the run-up it needs at the start. The fact that the guys grew up on The Beatles is something they flag right with the first track, jumping into a motif straight out of those distant olden days that evidently still echo forever in certain ears.
Vocals are handled by John Mitchell, whose absolute home turf is actually guitar. So why Mitchell on vocals? With the exception of Losers Day Parade and, partly, People, “Picture” is an album built from nicely rounded, compact, heads-and-tails songs that crawl straight into your ears and under your skin. If you want to sound American neo prog, which Kino do, you need to be able to get close to a vocal à la Neil Morse (ex-Spock’s Beard, ex-Transatlantic, solo career) or Nick D’Virgilio (Spock’s Beard). Even if you’re far from the level of both singers, you just have to steer things in the right direction. Mitchell is lucky enough to be steered that way. As an Englishman, he’s been vaccinated against the English syndrome of cramming in “Gabrielisms”, which is typical of British neo progressive bands. And that voice suits Kino’s sophisticated expression. Mitchell’s vocal is cleverly dressed up here and there with at least one more harmonic vocal line, which gives the sound breadth, while the weakness of a thinner voice gains some consistency. These seasoned guys have such studio tricks down completely.
And Kino aren’t your typical neo proggers. They’re just a few more “The Beatles freaks”, which most of the compositions on “Picture” confirm. If the album had come out in the eighties, you could have picked quite a few potential hits from the batch. Interestingly, the songs are mostly mid-tempo, dreamily slowed down rather than the guys indulging in some over-the-top rock romp through thick and thin. Take the liveliest detour of them all, the simple short “retro new wave eighties light pop rocker” Room For Two with its “The Police guitar drive”, which would get radio play with no problem at all. So Kino lean toward pop rock, even AOR! Melodic compactness takes absolute priority over progressive detours, which could at best loosen the expressive power of the carefully crafted motifs. In the instrumental middle sections the guys allow themselves a bit more creative room, but they dole out their solo escapes diligently and in just the right measure, so the thing keeps its perfect rock fluidity. The keyboards build the melodic backdrop, onto which extra multicolored piano flourishes and guitar motifs are artfully layered, giving Kino’s music the color and dynamics it needs.
The album’s second high point is the track People, where Mitchell offers more variety in his singing and his emotions come through more than on any other song on the record. The rhythm section finally delivers some exploratory extravagance (which is in short supply on the album, considering the names in the lineup of Kino), with prog-style rhythmic perforation of the track. People combines a great mix of neo prog elements, tastefully dosed with pop rock tunes. The fact that John Mitchell, the original Arena guitarist, is in Kino shows in the chorus of Swimming In Women, thanks to the similar use of multi-vocal harmonies within the chorus. And if we turn to Pete Trewavas, a member of Marillion, and look for similarities between Kino and Marillion, you can find a few pointers to Marillion (the Hogarth era!) in the track Holding On, while Trewavas brings more of what he did with Transatlantic to Kino’s sound than of what he’s currently doing with Marillion.
The guys are trying to sound commercial, and in the eighties an album like this would surely have been a big hit. So: rock looseness, lightness, nice polished melodies, roughly speaking a modernized The Beatles with prog rock wings added in a sophisticated way. In other words, for everyone looking for rock “without the sugary sweetness”. The rest of you, who are initiated into the deeper creations of the seventies and looking for some new musical experiment, won’t find anything new in Kino at all, or an album you’ll thoroughly dissect after three listens, and it’ll soon become absolutely “too sweet” for you.
Lineup
John Mitchell – vocals, guitar
John Beck – keyboards
Pete Trawavas – bass guitar
Chris Maitland – drums
Tracklist
1. Losers Day Paradise (9:03)
2. Letting Go (5:25)
3. Leaving A Light On (6:17)
4. Swimming in Women (5:22)
5. People (6:07)
6. All You See (5:08)
7. Perfect Tense (4:16)
8. Room for Two (3:43)
9. Holding On (7:08)
10. Picture (2:22)
Album length: 54:59
