Kayo Dot – Every Rock, Every Half-Truth under Reason (Review)

This is the eleventh album from US experimental band Kayo Dot.

The tag experimental is frequently not a very useful one, but then Kayo Dot aren’t a band that invite easy categorisation. Every Rock, Every Half-Truth under Reason contains 66 minutes of music, and a range of styles and influences have gone into its creation.

Every Rock, Every Half-Truth under Reason is an intriguing blend of avant-garde, progressive, doom, ambient, drone, and post-rock ingredients, all baked together into an imposing collection of songs that refuse to conform to any one thing.

The five tracks are all quite compelling, with their own voice within the whole. To an extent it’s unpredictable by design, yet avoids becoming unlistenable or an exercise in creativity without focus. Kayo Dot know exactly, precisely what they’re doing, and their labyrinthine, shapeshifting sound unfolds with a surgical grace that somehow feels unforced and natural.

Mental Shed and Closet Door in the Room Where She Died are both dark, oppressive drone works – think Khanate crossed with Bell Witch for a rough idea of what kind of terrifying spaces they inhabit. They are both haunting and atmospheric pieces, with harsh screaming vocals, that may come across as sparse and minimal, but are actually layered with levels of tormented instrumentation. Both songs would flow naturally from one track to the next, were it not for Oracle by Severed Head inserting itself between them, which we’ll come to later.

Automatic Writing is a monster 23-minute track, and continues in a related way to Mental Shed and Closet Door in the Room Where She Died, only with clean singing, instead of screams – add the experimental work of Radiohead to my rough reference points already given. It’s a hypnotic balance of the beautiful and the otherworldly, with discordant and menacing music. It’s a tense affair, and reminds me of something, especially near the end, that remains just out of reach no matter how much I focus on it.

Final song Blind Creature of Slime takes the tension, the dark moods, and the atmospheres built and sustained across the above songs and unleashes them. It’s dramatic and powerful. At eight minutes in length it’s the shortest here, but probably the most potent in terms of cathartic emotional release. The way the guitars are struck sounds violent, and the music swirls with well-realised potentialities. After the journey that it’s taken to get here, Blind Creature of Slime is the closer that Every Rock, Every Half-Truth under Reason needed and deserved.

Which brings us to the record’s outlier – the second song Oracle by Severed Head. By significant contrast to the songs it is set in the middle of, Oracle by Severed Head is a far busier affair, and sounds like a completely different band. It is built upon a large ensemble of instruments and striking clean singing. It’s carries a whimsical air with it, yet one rooted in sadness and almost a sense of fear for what’s to come. It reminds me of what a non-metallic jam between bands such as Steven Wilson, Ulver, We Lost the Sea, and Imperial Triumphant might sound like. Sort of. Although it works as a song in and of itself, it doesn’t fit with the rest of the record as seamlessly as everything else does. That might be the point though, I imagine.

Every Rock, Every Half-Truth under Reason is clearly not going to be a record for everyone. It is, however, a meticulously crafted work of avant-garde drone that is a compelling listen for anyone who wants to experience something different from the norm. If this is you, then this is for you.