Kap Bambino - Devotion

Those who are fans of Crystal Castles, electrotrash or music that can wake you up better than a steaming cup of coffee poured directly on your face may be familiar with French boy/girl duo Kap Bambino. If you’re looking for spooky electronic jams that will most likely terrify you if you play them in the pitch black on your own, then look no further as ‘Devotion’ is raving mad. Although what starts off as a playful journey full of dark electro soon turns tedious as the same sledgehammer synth based scenery makes you yearn to look at a different soundscape.

Opener ‘Resistance Alpha’ wastes no time with distorted synth loops and breathy vocal snippets from Caroline Martial. Usually the drum line is often the pulse of a song but here it half-heartedly ambles along without getting your heart racing too fast. From ‘Obsess’, ‘Devotion’ doesn’t stop to say hello and rushes on impolitely, wasting no time to launch into the next song. The title track features reverb heavy high pitched yelps that echo into the distance and the song structure is similar to that of dance as the song crescendos with an ascending drum beat and a sinister instrumental before bursting into a cacophony of noise.

‘Burning’ is the point on ‘Devotion’ at which the pastiche takes over, with a pummelling instrumental whilst Martial’s imitates Alice Glass’ shrill but endearing vocals. ‘White Voodoo’, which already sounds like a Prodigy song name, contains vocal samples that are similar to those in their song ‘Out Of Space’ yet instead of repeating a catchy phrase like ‘I’ll take your brain to another dimension,’ Martial’s high pitched yelps just start to sound like nails on a chalkboard as you wish she’d take it down a key. At other points, Caroline sounds like a small child chanting nursery rhymes and part of what makes the high points of the album work is her versatility. ‘Devotion’ is patchy but does the best it can with the limited space it’s been given when other bands have a similar sound but manage to make their music more consistent.