GAMMA KNIFE

Gamma Knife is a short one, clocking in at barely a half-hour. The long, dense tracks we've come to know Kayo Dot for are gone and replaced with average-length 5-7 minute tracks. The artsy covers we've come to see from Kayo Dot has been replaced with a blank pinkness (although I've heard talk this is only a placeholder for the cover, but it's been a long time now so I'm starting to not believe). So really, there's no telling what to expect if you're a Kayo Dot fan coming into this album.

Well at the start, it's a quiet peaceful track. Seems normal enough. Then hold up, what's this? The second track is just pure metal, and the most prominent instrument is... saxophone? We also have growls, which we haven't heard in a while. The next two tracks continue this vein of chaotic jazz metal, often dissonant and almost without direction it seems, but it's still quiet fun to listen to I find. The production is pretty muddy, but it works for the album, kind of like how it works for maudlin of the Well.

So this is pretty unlike anything else Kayo Dot has done, but it's really what we'd expect from a brilliant mind such as Toby Driver, who really can't seem to bear making the same kind of music for any amount of time, but it does work to his advantage being the mastermind he is. I can't really see this album appealing to that large of a group of people, being as it lacks any sort of melody in the middle 3 tracks, but to fans of aural insanity and squealing saxophone, you might fancy this album a bit more than others.