HUBARDO

Are you proud of yourself, Toby Driver? Are you satisfied with having me as your eternal and devoted follower, speechless in the face of HUBARDO's grandeur? If these questions were ever to reach Toby, I imagine the answer to them as follows: "Yes, we did it, we have transmuted the gleaming stone that fell from the moonless sky. Essence and forms blossomed beautifully from the eye of Leviathan and merged into this ever morphing sculpture of sounds. You can almost see it once you close your eyes, open your heart and let the ear follow the chisel."

In a way, HUBARDO encompasses everything that Toby Driver has ever done with maudlin of the Well, Kayo Dot and Tartar Lamb, but in fact it is so much more. It's an individual, conceptual work and while it obviously sounds like something made by Kayo Dot, it is more adventurous, dense and technical than anything they've done before. To be completely honest, it's impossible to describe an album with total playing time of almost 100 minutes, that flows like a poem and stirs the soul with whole range of emotions. A record that stupefies with passionate outbursts of experimental extremity, seamlessly evolving into haunting chamber rock passages or krautrock psychedelia. I can't even fathom out how avant-garde jazz and fusion, chamber post-rock, experimental black metal and psychedelic rock can be so beautifully blended together into a music that reaches and goes beyond any horizons; music that crushes boundaries and escapes any classification except for one: Art that comes to existence out of pure need of creation itself; need to channel the ephemeral creative fire into an immortal work. And, as if that weren't enough, HUBARDO boasts some of the most intriguing ambiance and lyrics I've ever encountered. Ah, so much could be said about this surreal, somewhat vaudevillian atmosphere, about this dreamy feeling of witnessing beauty and awe inspiring freedom. Freedom so moving and spontaneous, despite the staggering complexity of the music it gave birth to.

HUBARDO, the seventh album by the avant-chamber-rock/experimental metal band Kayo Dot, is the ultimate evidence that music is boundless. It's one of those rare pieces of art that are so unique and passion driven, that any attempt to analyze and deconstruct it backfires on the reviewer. Even though you may stay indifferent to the beauty of HUBARDO, you can't deny its singularity and sheer compositional genius of Kayo Dot. As far as I am concerned, I'm so deeply in love with this wondrous album, that I feel ashamed by the very fact of publishing this review. A review that will not do HUBARDO enough justice.

-- Originally written for Metal Music Archives --

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