Can't Get It Together Cicero IL

Can't Get It Together

The K's

Flatware Productions, 2007

http://www.theksband.com

REVIEW BY: Shane M. Liebler

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 07/04/2008

It’s a pop record, but the K’s aren’t what you’d call a pop band. There’s complexity here in both the use of various instruments and multiple influences.

It’s tough to be a roots-rock bar band from Louisville, Kentucky; that’s why lead singer/songwriter Daniel Killian took his dreams to New York City. The sound retains its heart-of-America flavor on high-energy cuts like the opening title track and “13 Steps,” both of which thoroughly repeat the choruses.

This style becomes less repetitive and more hypnotic as Can’t Get It Together breezes through its 15 songs in a scant 40 minutes. Tracks “Eliza Lynn,” both the subtitled “Bar” and “Saloon” versions, can stay in the Louisville taverns, though, along with a few other toss-aways.

The album is held together by the gratuitous use of horns, namely the sax, in scraggly harmony with Killian’s vocals, which are consistently reminiscent of Minutemen front-man D. Boon’s poetic growl, although the K’s make a far less artsy mess than those San Pedro, Calif., punk rockers.